Felicity yells for him to stop. “It’s all right, love. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Dougal tries to take off in pursuit, but Felicity pulls him back, begging him to stop. The big man can’t hope to catch Aiden, who has gone by the time I reach the road.
“He went that way,” says Evie, pointing towards Silverdale Walk.
I listen and imagine I can still hear his footsteps on the asphalt path, crossing the bridge and skirting the meadow, but the only sound is Felicity tearfully calling his name, telling him to come home.
59
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
I fall into step beside Cyrus as we walk along the footpath as far as the footbridge and glance over the railing at the pond.
“Why did Jodie come this way?” I ask.
“It’s the shortest route home.”
Silently I mouth the word “home.” It should be a simple concept, but I’ve never understood what it means. Is home a place or a language or a culture or a climate or geography? People run away from home and get homesick and become homeless. Does “home” mean something different to each person? Do we make our own? Does it make us whole?
I wipe my nose on my sleeve. “Why did that boy run?”
“I don’t know.”
“He looked frightened.”
“Yes.”
Cyrus pauses and raises his face to the treetops, as though sniffing something on the breeze. Without warning, he turns off the path.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a place just beyond those trees—an old hunting lodge. I want to check it out.”
He takes my hand, leading me along a muddy path that narrows in places and is soft beneath my boots. A cobweb brushes and breaks against my cheek. Faint night sounds are audible between our footsteps.
I can see the building now. The roof has partially collapsed, like a house of cards that has fallen on one side, and vines have grown up into the rafters, trying to wrestle the remaining walls to the ground.
“Wait here,” he says.
“Don’t go.”
“Do you have your phone?”
I nod.
“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, I want you to call the police.”
“Ten minutes.”
“OK.”
I lose sight of his silhouette in the deeper shadows but hear the creak of weight being placed on wooden steps.
I hear his voice: “Aiden?” But no reply.
The trees lean towards me, closing over my head, blacker than the sky, although some are edged by faint traces of silver from cobwebs and beads of dew. I’m used to understanding night sounds. Not the insects or the birds, but the creak of floorboards and the groan of branches and someone breathing in the darkness.
Time passes. I look at my phone. The brightness of the screen blinds me for a few seconds. I don’t know how many minutes have passed. I didn’t make a note of the time when Cyrus left. It must be ten by now. Longer. I softly call his name. Louder.
“Don’t leave me,” I want to say.
Is he playing a game? Is he hiding? Is he hurt?
Moments later I hear voices. Cyrus appears. The boy is with him. Aiden keeps his eyes down, not acknowledging me. His hair is uncombed and wild. He scuffs his shoes in the fallen leaves.
“This is Evie,” says Cyrus. No hands are shaken. No looks are exchanged.
“Can we go home now?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
* * *
After midnight. The kettle is cooling. Tea has brewed. Aiden is sitting at the table with his bag between his feet, occasionally running his hands through his hair. He looks like a girl, I think. Prettier than most. Prettier than me.
Cyrus asks him if he’s hungry. A shake of the head.
“Do you have any cigarettes?”
I offer him one of mine from the packet I keep in the laundry, on a shelf above the dryer. Poppy lifts her head from the oversized wicker basket that has become her bed.
“We’ll have to smoke in the garden,” I say. “Cyrus has a thing about secondhand smoke.”
“I’ll make an exception for tonight,” Cyrus says.
I give him a raised eyebrow.
“Maybe you should go to bed, Evie.”
“I’m fine.”
He jerks his head towards the door, but I reach for a cigarette and light up, positioning an ashtray between Aiden and me. Cyrus opens a window. Settles again.
“What was all that about—the fight with your uncle?”
Aiden shrugs. Eyes down. Faltering.
Cyrus tries again. “Jodie came to your house on the night she died. I think she knocked on the door of the caravan.”
Aiden doesn’t have to say anything. He’s an open book. He’s a whole library of open books.
“How long had you two been . . . ?”
“Five months,” says Aiden, filling his lungs with smoke.
“Who knew?”
“Nobody.”
“Are you sure?”
Aiden is staring at his reflection in the window.
“We couldn’t tell anyone. Aunt Maggie would have freaked out. She’s so Catholic, you know. Jodie and me have known each other since we were kids. Most of that time, I thought she was just another annoying brat like Tasmin, but then . . .” He stops and starts again. “Tasmin had a sleepover party for her sixteenth birthday. It was all girls, dressed in pajamas, playing games and dancing around the house to crappy pop songs. They were sneaking vodka into their lemonade. I was supposed to be the responsible adult, but I let it go, you know. I paid for the pizzas and then made myself scarce, hanging out in my van.
“Tasmin wanted to play hide-and-seek. I could hear the girls finding hiding places in the garden and upstairs. Next thing, Jodie burst into the caravan and pleaded with me to hide her. I told her to find somewhere else. I mean, you’ve seen my van—there are no hidey-holes or crawl spaces. She could hear Tasmin counting, calling out, ‘Ready or not!’ Jodie burrowed under the duvet next to me and lay still with her head on my chest and her arms and legs wrapped around me.”
Aiden looks up at Cyrus imploringly.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t like that. Up until that night, Jodie was just Jodie, you know. We grew up together. We splashed in wading pools and played Monopoly and wrestled for the TV remote. She was my cousin. Not even a girl. But now she was wrapped around me, her head on my chest. I could feel her warm breath and smell her shampoo. Tasmin came bursting through the door, asking if I’d seen Jodie. I told her no. She left. Jodie didn’t move. For minutes she lay there, holding me, her face invisible, her body warm. Eventually, she pushed back the duvet and looked up at me. Her eyes were shining. We’d never kissed before, not even on the cheek, but this was a proper kiss, an on-screen kiss, you know, like in the movies. She had a wad of chewing gum in her mouth. It finished in mine. It felt like we were trying to breathe for each other.”
“Did you have sex that night?”
“Not then. Later.”
“Was Jodie a virgin?”
He nods.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“Uh-huh.”
Cyrus glances at me, wordlessly asking the question. I nod. Aiden is telling the truth.
He continues. “We took precautions most of the time. Jodie wanted to go on the pill, but we knew what Aunt Maggie would say if she found out.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Nobody, at first, but when Jodie got pregnant she told my dad because she didn’t want to keep practicing the difficult jumps. He wanted her to land the triple axel, but she knew that any fall could hurt the baby.”
“Did he know about you?”
“No. Jodie refused to say. Dad wanted her to get an abortion. He said nobody had to know if they did it quietly, and that Jodie could keep skating and stay at school.”
“But she wanted to keep the baby,” says Cyrus.
Aiden nods, stub
bing out his cigarette. He reaches for another.
“It’s not illegal—you know. First cousins get married all the time—and have babies. I checked. Charles Darwin married his first cousin and so did Albert Einstein. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were cousins. It’s not taboo or anything like that. The baby would have been fine.”
“You planned to run away,” says Cyrus. “Where to?”
“We figured we’d go to London and rent a place.”
“What about your law degree—the scholarship?”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer. Never have. I only applied because of Mum. It was her dream—not mine.”
“What’s your dream?”
“I want to write songs and produce them. People think that’s pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I’m good. You should listen to my stuff.” He rummages in the bag at his feet and hands Cyrus a USB stick with the words “Bedroom Recordings” handwritten on the side.
“I should be able to try, right?” asks Aiden. “If it doesn’t work out, I can go to university.”
He’s looking from face to face, wanting us to agree. He must have had this argument a thousand times in his head, convincing himself before he risked talking to his parents.
“They took DNA from Jodie’s unborn child,” says Cyrus. “You’re not the father.”
“No! You’re wrong. Dad would never . . . she would never.”
Again, Cyrus looks at me. Again, I nod. Aiden believes what he’s saying, but that doesn’t make it true.
“Who knew that you were sleeping with Jodie?” asks Cyrus.
“Nobody.”
“What about your mother?”
“No, I mean, she almost caught us one day and went batshit crazy. I lied to her. I told her we were just fooling around. She read me the riot act, telling me that Jodie was underage and that she was my cousin and that Dougal and Maggie would be heartbroken if they knew and that I couldn’t touch her like that again. I told her nothing had happened and promised her that nothing would.”
“When was this?”
Aiden pauses, trying to remember. “Early September, maybe.”
“Before you knew that Jodie was pregnant?”
“Yeah.”
Cyrus seems to be calculating the dates and rearranging the timelines. “On the night Jodie came to the caravan, what happened?”
“Nothing. I mean. She was cold and tired. Some old letch at a party had groped her and offered her money for sex, but she ran away.”
“What did you do?”
“I made her a cup of tea. We talked . . .”
“You slept together.”
Aiden nods.
“Why use a condom?”
“Force of habit,” he says without irony.
“What made Jodie go home that night?” asks Cyrus.
Aiden shakes his head, unable to explain. “When she left the caravan, I thought she was going to sneak into the house and sleep in Tasmin’s room. It’s what she always did. I gave her my key.”
“What time was that?”
“Early hours. Jodie had to be up for training at six.”
Cyrus looks at the clock above the sink. It’s almost two a.m.
“You can sleep here tonight. We’ll talk to the police in the morning.” He turns to me. “Can you help me make up a bed for Aiden?”
I nod and empty the ashtray and put the mugs in the sink.
“You should call your mother and tell her you’re OK,” says Cyrus.
Aiden balks. “I don’t want to speak to her.”
“It can wait until morning.”
Upstairs, Cyrus shows me where he keeps the spare sheets and blankets. We make the bed together, although he’s pretty useless. I’m an expert at making beds with nurse’s corners. They used to check mine every day at Langford Hall.
“He was telling the truth,” I say.
“Or what he believes to be true,” Cyrus replies.
“What are you going to do?”
“Let the police decide.”
I hold a pillow under my chin and shake it into a slip.
“Do you know who killed Jodie Sheehan?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
“Mmmmmmm.”
Cyrus frowns. “You always make that sound when you don’t believe me.”
“Mmmmmm.”
60
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
The sun is almost liquid, angled so low that it slants through the blinds, reflecting from computer screens and empty whiteboards in the incident room. Aiden is sitting next to me wearing yesterday’s clothes, but he has showered and combed his hair.
Lenny is in a meeting. I can hear raised voices behind her closed office door. One of them I recognize.
Antonia glances up from her desk.
I whisper, “Who is it?”
She mouths the words: “Timothy Heller-Smith and Jimmy Verbic.”
“Why?”
She motions me to move closer, cupping her hand over my ear.
“I’m not sure, but it could have something to do with Felix Sheehan. He’s in hospital with a broken jaw and internal bleeding.”
“What happened?”
“Lenny thinks he ripped off his supplier and copped a beating. Apparently, he started off asking for police protection, but then changed his mind.”
The office door opens suddenly. Antonia jumps up as though it has triggered a motor inside her. She bustles around collecting coats and hats and scarves.
Heller-Smith recognizes me and smiles mockingly.
“Ah, it’s Dr. Haven. The shrink who won’t shrink.”
“Have we met?” I ask.
“No, but I’ve heard all about you. DCI Parvel seems very enamored. Maybe it’s a gender thing.”
This he finds funny. I glimpse the loathing in Lenny’s eyes but know she won’t say anything.
“I assume you two know each other,” says Heller-Smith, gesturing towards Jimmy.
We nod but give nothing away.
“Councilor Verbic has asked for and received a formal apology from Nottinghamshire Police for any hurt and inconvenience we have caused him. The chief constable feels that it has bordered on harassment.”
“The chief inspector was only doing her job,” says Jimmy. “I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”
“It wasn’t,” says Lenny.
Heller-Smith ignores the comment. “I have also received a complaint from the Sheehan family accusing the police of being insensitive and heavy-handed.”
“I’ll draft a response,” says Lenny.
“Yes, you do that.”
Heller-Smith notices Aiden.
“Let me guess—another suspect. Who is it this time?”
Aiden doesn’t move. I glance at Lenny, wanting to talk to her privately, but this isn’t the time or the place.
“This is Aiden Whitaker,” I say. “He wants to make a statement.”
“Did he kill Jodie Sheehan?”
“No. He claims to have got her pregnant.”
“Another one! Should we start compiling a list?”
“She was murdered,” I say through clenched teeth.
“That case is closed,” replies Heller-Smith.
“With all due respect, sir, that’s not your decision,” says Lenny, stepping forward. “This is still my investigation and I decide when it’s closed.”
Heller-Smith smiles crookedly and scratches his cheek. It’s like he’s marking up an unseen ledger, keeping a list of whatever slights and abuses he will revenge later.
“Another example of why you’re being transferred,” he says to nobody in particular.
“Maybe, but not until Monday.”
The men leave. Heller-Smith makes a barking sound all the way along the corridor, growing louder as he passes the incident room, letting everyone know what he thinks of Lenny.
She gives me a lazy sideways glance but doesn’t hold my eyes.
“Your timing is shit,” she mutters, addressing me, bu
t studying Aiden.
“He was with Jodie that night,” I explain. “They were together in the caravan. He claims the baby is his.”
“He’s wrong. Cousins don’t match the DNA profile.”
Aiden shakes his head. “No. I’m the father.”
“How do I know you’re not saying this to protect your old man?”
“I’m not. I loved her.”
Lenny sighs and yells to Antonia. “Get me Ness.”
“On the phone?”
“No. Here. Now!”
61
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
Poppy is barking at a squirrel in the garden.
“Be quiet,” I tell her, worried the neighbors might complain about the noise. The Labrador spins and lopes across the soggy grass, pausing to look back at the squirrel, as if to say, “I’ll get you next time.”
I’m sitting on the back steps, barefoot and in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket. Poppy’s tail thumps against my thigh as I scratch her behind the ears. Is this how happiness is meant to feel?
I miss Cyrus. I miss hearing his footsteps and the creak of the plumbing when he turns on the taps and the clang of his weights dropping into the cradle. The house feels empty when he’s not here.
Wandering back inside, I think about reading some of his books or beading my hair or watching TV. I flick through the channels, where people are buying houses in the country or showing off kitchen gadgets or yelling at each other in a courtroom.
The mail flap echoes along the hallway. The newspapers are lying on the doormat, wrapped in plastic, along with the morning mail: two letters and a postcard with an Irish stamp. It shows a picture of a rocky coastline in the Aran Islands. Four words are scrawled beside the address: “Leave my parents alone.”
I have no idea what it means, but I leave it on the desk for Cyrus.
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