He smirks.
In the bedroom, I open the wardrobe and pull out a small suitcase with a stenciled insignia for the British Ice Skating team. Lenny tosses me a pair of Latex gloves and dons her own. The main zipper slides open, revealing clothes—knickers, skivvies, a sweater, two skirts, and a pair of jeans, as well as a woolen hat with ear flaps. There are separate pouches for Jodie’s toiletries and makeup. Lower down, I find a soft toy, a floppy-eared rabbit with a missing eye and a chewed ear. She was taking folic acid tablets and reading a book called: How to Grow a Baby and Push It Out.
“Why pack a suitcase?” I ask, without realizing I’ve said it out loud.
“She was going to London,” says Lenny.
“Which is only two hours away by train. She didn’t have to stay overnight. According to Ness, Jodie was eleven weeks pregnant, which was still early enough for her to have a medical abortion. She could have taken a pill and come back a few days later for a second one.”
I look again at the contents of the bag—the clothes, the makeup, the vitamins, and the much-loved childhood toy. Suddenly, the answer is clear to me.
“Jodie wasn’t terminating a pregnancy—she was running away.”
45
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Tasmin Whitaker is still dressed in her school uniform when she answers the door. She opens it far enough to peer over the chain, squinting as though the sun is in her eyes. A dusting of icing sugar covers her top lip.
“Mum and Dad aren’t home.”
“It’s you I wanted to see.”
A shadow passes across her face.
“I want to talk about Jodie.”
Tasmin looks over her left shoulder, holding the door with both hands.
“Who is it, Tas?” asks a voice from inside.
“The police,” she replies.
“I’m not the police. I’m a psychologist.”
Aiden pushes Tasmin out of the way, opening the door wider. He’s wearing track pants and a football shirt that hangs loosely on his slim frame. They don’t look like brother and sister. It’s as though Aiden was given first dibs at the beauty buffet, getting the eyelashes, cheekbones, and clear skin, while Tasmin had to make do with the leftovers.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“I was hoping I could talk to Tasmin.”
“I thought you did that already.”
“I have a few more questions.”
Aiden seems to pounce on the statement. “You can’t talk to her without an adult present.”
“It’s not a formal interview,” I reply, “but you seem to know the rules.”
“I’m reading law at Cambridge.”
“I thought that was next year.”
“Yeah, well, I know my shit,” he says defiantly.
“Yes, you do,” I say. “You’ll make a great lawyer.”
Aiden isn’t sure if I’m teasing him. Tasmin steps in between us. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I could talk to both of you,” I say.
Aiden agrees grudgingly and the door shuts behind me with a ragged click. We choose the sitting room because the kitchen table is covered in scraps of yellow fabric and a sewing machine.
“Mum is decorating my coat for the memorial service,” explains Tasmin. “Yellow was Jodie’s favorite color.”
“When is the memorial?”
“The day after tomorrow. Do you want a cup of tea?” She sounds like her mother.
“No, I’m fine.”
Aiden checks his phone before sitting next to his sister, who is perched on the edge of the sofa, as though I’m interviewing her for a job. She’s holding a small stuffed monkey in her lap that makes her look younger.
“Is that one special?” I ask.
“Jodie won it for me at the Goose Fair. You had to get five balls through the hoop. I couldn’t get one.”
“You two were friends for a long time?”
“We went to the same primary school and to Forsyth Academy and dance classes and skating and we went on holidays together and other stuff.”
“Do you skate?”
“No. Daddy says I skate like a baby hippo.” There’s no hint of regret in her voice.
“How often did Jodie come here?” I ask, motioning around me.
“All the time. We were like sisters.” Again it’s her mother talking.
“After school?”
“Yeah. Aiden used to help her with her homework.”
I glance at Aiden for confirmation. “She was missing a lot of school,” he explains, not bothering to look up from his phone. “I helped her with her maths.”
“How often?”
“Twice a week.”
“Who arranged that?”
“Aunt Maggie asked Mum and she asked me.”
“Were you paid?”
“What?”
“Were . . . you . . . paid?”
“Yeah.”
Another silence. Tasmin is growing bored because it’s not about her. She’s playing with the monkey in her lap, twisting its arms into a knot and undoing them again.
“I talked to some of Jodie’s skating friends who mentioned that she wanted to quit figure skating because of her injuries and headaches. Did she ever say anything to you?”
“Dad would have had a fit,” says Aiden.
I’m waiting for Tasmin, who is looking at the scuffed toes of her school shoes, swinging them back and forth.
“No,” she whispers, but I suspect she’s lying.
“Did you ever feel jealous of Jodie?”
The question seems to surprise her but she doesn’t hesitate. “All the time.”
“Why?”
“It was always Jodie this and Jodie that. Every time she sneezed or sniffled or fell over, people would be fussing over her, calling the doctor, handing her tissues. Isn’t she wonderful, isn’t she beautiful, isn’t she talented . . .”
“It wasn’t like that,” says Aiden.
“How would you know?” snaps Tasmin. “They said the same things about you. You’re the golden child and I’m the golden retriever.”
“Shut up, Tas.”
“You shut up!”
I interrupt. “Did Jodie have a secret boyfriend? Someone older.”
“What difference does that make?” asks Aiden.
“I’m just trying to understand her.”
Tasmin scratches at the bridge of her nose, but her eyes betray something other than jealousy or boredom.
“Sometimes she’d tell Aunt Maggie that she was staying with me, but then she’d go off and do other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“You shouldn’t be telling tales,” says Aiden.
“They’re not tales. Jodie used to sneak out at night and come back before we all woke up. I used to worry that she’d be late for practice, but she never got caught.”
“Do you know where she went?” I ask.
Tasmin shakes her head.
“When did this start?”
“During the summer holidays.”
I turn to Aiden. “Did you know?”
“I’m her cousin, not her babysitter.”
“You didn’t notice her coming and going?”
“I’m not here,” he replies, pointing into the garden, where a small egg-shaped caravan is parked against the back fence. A power cable snakes across the lawn to the house.
“How did Jodie get in and out?” I ask.
“I’d leave the sliding door unlocked on the patio,” replies Tasmin.
“What about the night she disappeared—did you leave it unlocked?”
She lowers her head and bites her bottom lip, leaving white marks in the indentations.
“Did you forget?”
“No.” A teardrop hangs on her lower lashes, growing fatter before it falls. “I wanted to punish her for leaving me alone at the fireworks . . . not taking me along.”
“You weren’t to know,” says Aiden, put
ting his arm around her shoulders.
“If I’d left the door unlocked, she wouldn’t have tried to walk home. She wouldn’t . . .”
Tasmin can’t finish and Aiden doesn’t know how to comfort her.
A door key slides into a lock and the front door opens. Bryan and Felicity Whitaker carry bags of groceries into the hallway, still arguing about something that must have started in the car. They stop abruptly.
“What are you doing here?” asks Bryan, his eyes sparking with anger.
“I’m talking to Aiden and Tasmin.”
“Without our permission.”
“Aiden is an adult.”
The groceries are dumped without ceremony on the floor. “I don’t want you talking to my children without us being here. I don’t want you putting words in their mouths.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
Everybody is on their feet and the sitting room feels small. Felicity has gone to Aiden, putting her arm around his waist. She went to him first, not Tasmin, who is clearly more upset.
“Jodie was pregnant and planning to run away,” I explain. “I thought she might have talked to Tasmin.”
“You think our daughter deliberately withheld information,” says Bryan.
“No.”
“That’s what you’re inferring.”
“It’s all right, Bryan,” says Felicity. “Let it go.”
“He accused me of molesting Jodie.”
Tasmin makes a gagging sound and Aiden laughs sarcastically. I don’t know what makes Bryan Whitaker angrier—my presence or the reactions of his children. He’s not a big man, but he makes himself larger, lunging at me.
Felicity intercepts and pushes him back, warning me to leave.
I take a business card from my jacket pocket and give it to Aiden and Tasmin.
“This is my address and my pager number. If you think of anything—get in touch.”
“You’re not welcome here,” yells Bryan. “Don’t come back.”
Felicity catches up with me before I reach the footpath. She pushes hair from her eyes, blinking wetly.
“You have the wrong impression of this family, Dr. Haven, if you think we’d do anything to hurt Jodie.”
46
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
The pizza is cold by the time it arrives. I have a slice and leave the rest to Keeley, who eats noisily, letting cheese hang from her lips. In between mouthfuls, she guzzles glasses of pink wine from a box, treating it like cordial. Where does the food go? There’s nothing of her.
During the afternoon, an Uber driver had delivered two plastic bags containing clothes for me—a short suede skirt, red tights, knickers, socks, and a fitted white blouse with a Peter Pan collar—all of them new. The knickers are black and lacy and a size too small. I have never worn a thong before. At Langford Hall they issue the girls with grandma knickers from Marks & Spencer and sports bras that never fit properly.
Keeley wrinkles her nose as she examines each new piece of clothing, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as though she might catch something. The only thing she seems to covet are the patent-leather ankle boots.
She’s sitting on the bed, waiting for me to finish showering.
“Where are you from?” I ask over the spitting water.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
There is a pause. “Sheffield.”
“Do you have family?”
“There’s me and Mum and two half brothers. They must be two and four by now.”
“You ever see them?”
“Nah.”
“Why not?”
“My stepdad.”
The answer doesn’t need elaboration. I’ve known at least a dozen girls from Langford Hall whose parents had split up and a new partner pushed them to leave. It’s like when a new lion takes over the pride. He kills the cubs or forces them out, clearing the way for his own progeny. That’s one of my daily words: “progeny.” It means descendants or children.
Turning off the shower, I reach for a towel and catch a hated glimpse of myself in the mirror. The bruises on my ribs are starting to yellow at the edges and have turned a deep purple at the center. They only hurt when I touch them.
Emerging from the bathroom with a towel around my chest, I use another to dry my hair.
“Where does Felix live?”
Keeley shrugs.
“Have you been there?”
“No.”
“But you’re his girlfriend.”
Her eyes flare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You should keep your opinions to yourself and your hands off him.”
I begin getting dressed. Keeley spies my tuft of pubic hair and snorts with derision.
“What?”
“Your bush.”
Embarrassed, I turn my back to her and slide the skirt over my thighs. Once I’m dressed, I risk looking in the mirror, surprised at the transformation. They used to bring me new clothes all the time when I was young: dresses and pinafores and leotards and gowns. Some made me look younger, others made me look older, but none of them felt like they belonged to me.
A door opens somewhere and voices echo through the derelict building.
“They’re here,” says Keeley.
“Who?”
“You’ll see.”
The visitors are in the lounge—two black men in their twenties and a skinny middle-aged woman wearing a sarong and sandals like she’s holidaying somewhere warm.
One of the black men, Tuba, has his hair shaved in rings around his head like crop circles in a wheat field. His friend is lighter-skinned but morbidly obese. He wants me to call him Rambo, but Tuba says, “Nice one, Kev.”
“I can call myself Rambo,” complains Kev, who has multiple chins and rolls of fat that fill out a huge shiny orange tracksuit that must be visible from outer space.
“You should call yourself Star-Lord,” says Tuba. “Or the Hulk.”
“Fuck off!”
The middle-aged woman ignores their banter and lights a cigarette. She hasn’t acknowledged me, concentrating instead on her phone and chewing at the edges of her fingernails like she’s trying to sharpen them.
I introduce myself. The woman ignores me.
“Don’t mind Carla,” says Tuba. “She’s not a people person.”
“She’s a voodoo priestess,” says Kev, who starts singing “I Put a Spell on You,” waving his arms around like he’s Harry Potter.
Felix arrives, carrying two six-packs of beer. He’s showered and changed, dressed up for a night out, in expensive jeans and a designer shirt. He greets Tuba and Kev with a choreographed “handshake” involving bumped shoulders and dabbed fists. Keeley drapes herself over him, purring into his ear.
Carla stops staring at her phone and says, “Sorry about your sister.” Her voice is coarsened by cigarettes or alcohol or both.
“Yeah, brah,” echoes Tuba. “Fucking intense.”
“It was all over the TV,” says Kev. “Pictures of Jodie and your folks.”
Felix doesn’t answer.
“What happened to your sister?” I ask, more alert than before.
“Nothing,” says Felix.
“Is she the girl who got killed?”
“Not up for discussion.”
The statement is so savage that I bottle up my curiosity.
Kev sits down and splays his legs, taking up the whole sofa. Tuba keeps moving in a loose-limbed sort of swagger like he’s playing a pimp on TV. Carla has lit up another cigarette, sucking so hard that the filter compresses between her lips.
“What’s she doing here?” she says, thrusting a bleeding fingernail at me.
“She’s a new recruit.”
“How do we know she’s not a narc?”
“Does she look like a narc?” replies Felix.
“Where did you find her?”
“At the bus stat
ion.”
“Oh, great! Yeah, she’s definitely not a narc.”
Her sarcasm annoys Felix. “I found you at an AA meeting. Maybe you’re the narc?”
Carla backs off but isn’t happy. Felix tells me to wait outside.
I don’t mind. I didn’t like the vibe in the room or the direction of the conversation. Nobody had been lying, but I sensed how quickly the mood changed when Jodie Sheehan’s name was dropped.
Cyrus didn’t mention that Jodie had a brother. And his name didn’t come up in any of the police interviews with Craig Farley. Yet here he is, organizing deliveries of vitamins or steroids or whatever shit he deals in. It surprises me. I don’t know why. It’s not as if murder victims have to come from a squeaky-clean family. Surely the opposite is sometimes true.
Standing in the poorly lit hallway, I press my ear to the door, listening to the muffled voices, which become clearer when they relax and open the beers.
“You got to stop picking up strays,” says Carla. “It’s too risky.”
“She’s a juvie. A runaway. Someone beat her up,” replies Felix.
“She knows our names and what we look like.”
“She won’t be here long.”
“Good,” says Keeley. “I don’t like her.”
“All of you shut up,” Felix says angrily. “I’ll check her out before she does a run, OK?”
“Are we working tonight,” says Tuba, “or gasbagging?”
“No. I’m putting deliveries on hold for a while,” replies Felix. “I had a visit from the pigs today. They know fuck all, but we’re going to lay low for a spell.”
“For how long?” asks Kev.
“Until the heat dies down.”
“I got bills to pay,” complains Carla.
“More like a habit to feed,” replies Kev.
Carla must react because Kev says, “You’re such a classy lady.”
“And you’re a fat bastard,” she replies.
“I thought they caught the guy,” says Tuba.
“Yeah, but they’re still sniffing around. We’ll give it a week—ten days tops.”
“And what are we supposed to do?”
“Take a holiday. Go somewhere warm. You’re dressed for it.”
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 26
