“Is there a point to this?”
“Four years later, Violet was working as a nurse on a hospital ship, the Britannic, when it hit a German mine and started sinking. She jumped overboard and was sucked under the ship’s keel, only to be dragged out of the water with a fractured skull. Again, she survived.”
“What in God’s name are you on about?”
“I’m saying that stranger things have happened. Bigger coincidences. I think Jodie was already dead or dying when Craig Farley found her. I think someone else fractured her skull and threw her off the footbridge.”
Lenny grunts scornfully. “It’s ridiculous. More to the point, it’s dangerous. Farley hit her on the head, raped her, and he left her to die. He confessed for God’s sake.”
Turning her back, she climbs onto an exercise bike and begins pedaling, pushing buttons to set the level of difficulty. I hold on to the handlebars as though stopping her from moving. I argue, putting facts in a different order.
“Jodie was hit from behind and either fell or was pushed into the pond. The shock of the cold water brought her round and she dragged herself onto the bank. She was disorientated. Coughing. Cold. Freezing. She stumbled along the path, only to collapse, unable to clear water from her lungs. Her respiratory system failed. If that didn’t kill her, it was the subzero temperatures.”
Lenny ignores me, but I know she’s listening.
“Farley is fascinated by pornography and young girls. He has a history of exposing himself. What does someone like that do when he stumbles across an unconscious girl?”
“Any normal person calls for help.”
“Farley isn’t normal. He undressed Jodie and masturbated over her. Afterwards he realized what he’d done and panicked. He tried to clean up. He covered her with branches. He went home and dumped his clothes.”
Lenny is up out of the saddle, pedaling hard. A towel is draped around her neck.
“Someone had sex with Jodie using a condom,” I say.
“Farley.”
“Why would a rapist use a condom and then masturbate into her hair?”
“He had an accomplice.”
“Farley doesn’t have any friends.”
Lenny’s mouth has tightened into a grim line. “Are you seriously suggesting that two predators, independent of one another, defiled that girl on the same night? One hits her and tosses her off a footbridge, and the other just happens to wander by and say, ‘What luck—here’s an unconscious girl I can masturbate over.’ ”
“I’m trying to make the facts fit the evidence.”
“No, you’re putting a bomb under my investigation.” She drops her voice to a harsh whisper. “You have to stop it, Cyrus! No more!”
“You asked me to review the evidence.”
“And now I want you to shut up and forget everything. Put none of this in writing. We have a confession. We have his DNA. He’s our man.”
“A minute ago you suggested he had an accomplice.”
“He didn’t.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“I’ll leave that to the jury.”
Getting off the bike, Lenny wipes her face on a towel and walks away, heading for the change rooms. I follow her inside. Several women are in various stages of undress. One of them lets out a cry of surprise and holds a towel across her nakedness.
“Are you trying to get arrested?” Lenny asks.
“What about the money we found in Jodie’s locker? We don’t know who picked her up that night or how she got to the footpath.”
Lenny is packing her gym bag.
“I want to talk to Tasmin Whitaker,” I say.
“She’s been interviewed.”
“By the police, not by me. Best friends tell each other things . . . stuff they hide from adults. Secrets. People keep saying that Jodie was a normal teenager who loved dancing and music and ice-skating, but there’s more to her than that.”
“How do you know?”
“There always is.”
28
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
Evie makes a meh sound.
“I could start dinner now.”
“Whatever.”
I begin pulling things out of the fridge. Filling a saucepan with water.
“You’re a vegetarian, right?”
“So?”
“Any other dietary requirements?”
She shrugs again. That’s been the story since Evie arrived; I’ve experienced the full range of her shrugs, grimaces, and monosyllabic vocabulary.
I try again. “What sort of things do you like to eat?”
“Food doesn’t really interest me.”
“What were the meals like at Langford Hall?”
“Shit.”
Evie is sitting cross-legged on a stool like an Indian swami. I strike a match and light the burner, putting on the water to boil.
“You should learn how to cook while you’re here.”
“Why?”
“You’ll be able to look after yourself when you leave.”
“I can look after myself.”
There is another long silence. I dice onions and garlic, frying them in a heavy-based saucepan.
“If we’re going to live together, we should get to know each other,” I say. “Let’s start with simple things. My favorite song is ‘Things Have Changed’ by Bob Dylan. How about you?”
“ ‘Goofy’s Concern.’ ”
“Who plays that?”
“The Butthole Surfers.”
“Is that a real band?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t know if she’s being serious.
“My favorite color is dark blue,” I say. “How about you?”
“Black.”
“Technically that’s not a color.”
“Bite me.”
“Favorite film: The Shawshank Redemption.”
“I’ve seen that one,” says Evie.
“Did you like it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It gives you all the answers. Nothing is left to wonder about. There’s no ambiguity. It ends with happy people hugging on a beach. When does that ever fucking happen?”
“You don’t believe in happy endings?”
“Every ending is unhappy.”
“Why?”
“Because we die.”
“Ah, you’re a fatalist?”
“A what?”
“You think we have no power to influence the future and that everything we do is predetermined, or pointless, because our fate has already been decided.”
“No. I just know we’re going to die.”
I can’t argue with that.
Opening a tin of peeled tomatoes, I empty the contents into the saucepan, breaking them with a wooden spoon and adding torn fresh basil leaves, salt, and pepper. The water is boiling. I add the spaghetti and take a block of Parmesan from the fridge, setting it on a plate with a cheese grater.
“What’s your favorite film?” I ask.
“True Romance.”
“You like Tarantino?”
“Who?”
“Quentin Tarantino. He wrote True Romance.”
Evie looks at me blankly.
I change the subject. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Margherita pizza.”
“Dream holiday destination?”
“I’ve never had a holiday.”
“But you must have somewhere you’d like to go? Greece? Tahiti? America?”
Her face is a mask.
“How about your first memory? Mine is getting chased by this big-assed swan when I was feeding ducks with my mother. We were in Henley, near where they have the rowing races.”
“They race rowboats?”
“They’re a bit more sophisticated than rowboats.”
Evie looks past me. “My father once took me sailing,” she says, as though we’ve found a com
mon interest. “He rented a boat and we sailed out past the pier and the bay, into the open sea. The wind picked up and so did the waves. I knew Dad was scared, but he didn’t want to show it.”
Evie grows animated as she describes the waves and the wind and water breaking over the bow.
“What happened?”
“We were rescued by a fishing boat and towed back to the pier.”
“Did you do a lot of sailing?”
“I don’t remember.”
This is progress, I think, as I drain the spaghetti in a colander and divide it into bowls. I start spooning sauce onto the pasta. It’s then I glimpse a postcard on the fridge. It shows a sailing boat, heeling sideways in the wind, water breaking over the bow.
“Was any of that story true?”
Evie doesn’t respond.
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“You don’t have to keep asking me questions.”
We eat in silence. Evie watches me grate the cheese on my spaghetti. I push it towards her.
She sniffs the Parmesan. “Smells like sick.”
“It tastes better than it smells.”
She grates a little on her sauce. I watch her take the fork, fill it with pasta, and lift it to her mouth. She closes her eyes and chews, letting out a small moan.
“Good?”
She doesn’t respond and eats quickly, with one arm on the table, protecting her food like an inmate in a prison canteen.
“I’m going for a run in the morning, would you like to come?”
“Fitness shit. No.”
“You could look for a job. I could help you put together a CV.”
“What would I put on a CV?”
She’s right.
“Have you thought about going back to school?”
“It’s too late—I’ve missed too much.”
“How is your reading?”
“OK. I try to learn a new word every day. Today’s word is ‘curmudgeon.’ It means grumpy fucker.”
“I know what it means.”
She smiles as though congratulating herself, before changing the subject.
“You said I could have a mobile phone.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Why don’t you like them?”
“I have nothing against mobile phones. I choose not to have one because I prefer to talk to people face-to-face. As a psychologist, my job is to listen to people and to learn things about them, which I can’t do as effectively by reading a text or tweet.”
“It doesn’t seem very professional,” says Evie.
“I have a pager. People contact me. I call them back.”
“You vet your calls.”
“That’s not the reason.”
Evie studies my face, searching for the lie, but cannot find one.
Having cleaned her plate, Evie gets up from the table and turns to leave. I remind her about helping with the chores. She looks around the kitchen. “Where’s the dishwasher?”
“I don’t have one.”
“How do you wash stuff?”
“The old-fashioned way.” I pull out detergent, rubber gloves, and a scouring pad.
Evie turns on the taps, squirting detergent into the running water.
“You should do the glasses first,” I say.
Ignoring me, she picks up a plate, which slips from her fingers. She attempts to catch it in midair, but it slips again and shatters on the tiled floor, sending shards in every direction. Evie glares at me, as though it was my fault, and then I notice a different emotion. Despair. Loss.
“It’s only a plate,” I say, getting a dustpan and brush. “No harm done.”
Evie turns away, not wanting to show any sign of weakness. Eventually, she confronts me with a new allegation.
“Stop staring at me.”
“What?”
“You keep staring at me. You’re like all the others—the shrinks and therapists and social workers—you want to reach inside my head and hook your fingers in the cracks and open me up, see what makes me tick.”
“That’s not true.”
Evie snorts, recognizing my lie.
“Have you ever considered the possibility that I don’t need to relive my past or explore my feelings? I don’t need to be fixed because I’m not fucking broken.”
29
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
The old house is speaking to me. With every creak and groan, I imagine Cyrus standing in the corridor outside, the soft noise of his breathing, his timid knock, the door opening, light falling across the floor.
I climb out of bed, brace my shoulder against the chest of drawers, and push it across the bare wooden floorboards until it rests hard against the door.
Returning to the bed, I reach beneath the pillow, searching for the knife I took earlier when I was washing the dishes. At Langford Hall they count every utensil after mealtimes—even the potato peelers—but Cyrus didn’t bother to check.
I close my eyes but cannot sleep. I’m not used to this. For years I have lived in places where the doors were locked and the lights were dimmed; where CCTV cameras monitored my waking hours and the heating was controlled by a central switch and the water could be cut in the showers if I tried to block the drains. At seven forty-five each morning I would press a buzzer and ask to come out. Most mornings the doors unlocked immediately, but occasionally I was kept inside my room until whatever emergency had passed.
Cyrus hadn’t locked any doors or demanded the lights be turned off. I’m not his prisoner. I can wander down to the kitchen to grab a bite. I can walk outside and dance under a streetlight and nobody would stop me. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me awake—the choices.
I get out of bed again, open my bag, and take out the marbles and the pieces of colored glass and the button belonging to my mother. Finally, I come to an envelope of cash. Smoothing out the duvet, I count out the notes, separating them into different piles: ten, twenties, and fifties—£2,580 in total. My eyes come to rest on an old armchair in the corner. It’s covered in a faded floral fabric that is worn smooth where countless arses have sat. Rolling the chair onto one side, I study the stapled upholstery and the stitching, before taking the knife and carefully picking apart a seam, working the blade back and forth, until I create a pocket big enough to hold the cash. Once I’m finished, I return the chair to the corner and go back to bed, lying still, breathing slowly.
That’s when I hear the noise—the clang of metal on metal and a guttural groan as though an animal is caught in a trap.
Crossing the room, I lean over the drawers and press my ear against the door.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It’s coming from below me. Downstairs. The basement. I want to investigate. I want to stay in bed and cover my head with a pillow, blocking out the sound. I push aside the drawers and step onto the landing, clutching the knife. I pause for a moment and listen. There it is again—the moaning; metal striking metal.
Descending slowly, I follow the noise, running my fingers along the wall to feel my way forward. Every floorboard is like a trip wire, ready to give my presence away.
Light spills from a room. Creeping closer, I peer around the edge of a door and draw back suddenly. Then I look again, half in fear and half in fascination. An ink-stained figure is hunched beneath a metal bar that curves across his shoulders, bearing colored plates the size of hubcaps at either end. The figure squats and rises, his thighs trembling and his breath coming in short bursts. He does it again and again, each lift slower and harder than the last, until he groans and drops the weight onto a cradle.
His chest and arms are covered in an aviary of swallows, sparrows, hummingbirds, doves, lorikeets, and robins. The birds move as he moves, animated by the muscles beneath his skin and the beads of sweat that trickle in rivulets down his neck and chest.
Cyrus turns to pick up a bottle of water. I see his back, which is covered by an enormous set of folded wings that stretch
from his upper arms, across his shoulders, down either side of his spine, where they disappear beneath his shorts and reappear on his thighs. Each feather is so beautifully drawn and finely detailed that I can make out every barb and vane, so lifelike that I can imagine him arching his back, unfurling his wings, and taking flight.
Cyrus adds more weight to the bar before ducking underneath and bracing it across his shoulders. He tries to straighten. Groans. Nothing happens. It’s too heavy. He tries again; this time the bar rises a fraction of an inch, then more.
Veins bulge in his arms, and his face darkens with blood. This is not exercise. This is self-abuse. This is punishment.
I’m willing him to stay upright but his knees are buckling. He staggers. Sways. I catch my breath, sure that he’ll fall, but Cyrus steadies and lowers the bar with painful slowness. It hovers over the cradle for a moment before dropping, and he collapses onto a bench, his head draped over his splayed knees.
I back away, feeling like a voyeur or, worse, a thief. Returning to the bedroom and my new bed, I don’t bother pushing the chest of drawers against the door.
30
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Felicity Whitaker answers my knock with such a flourish that I’m sure she’s expecting someone else. Squeaking in surprise, she touches her face almost instinctively as though caught without her makeup. She’s in old jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair tied up in a scarf.
“I was cleaning.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“Don’t be. Any excuse.”
She pulls off her scarf and pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She’s someone who favors jewelry that dangles and clinks.
“Housework can be very therapeutic,” I say. “It gives me a sense of achievement.”
“I thought you’d have a cleaner.”
“No.”
“A wife?”
“No.”
Felicity raises her eyebrows in mock surprise and I wonder if she’s flirting. I’m still standing on the doorstep. Apologizing, she steps back, pushing a vacuum cleaner away with her foot. I squeeze past, almost brushing against her. She could give me more room.
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 16
