by Deborah Bee
‘OK, but can’t you just do it somewhere else.’
‘But here is fine!’
‘No, go away,’ I say. ‘Come back in an hour and I’ll help you.’
‘You want some of my “Love It to Bits” Smarties McFlurry?’
‘No. Go away. See you in an hour.’
‘You want tea?’ Sally asks.
‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here,’ I say. Sally’s standing there in her dressing gown.
‘You want tea or not?’ she says with a sigh, looking at Kitty.
‘Yeah, go on then. Never thought I’d start liking tea.’
‘You wanna put the bathroom cupboard back together when you have a sec, Clare? It looks like a shit . . .’
‘Hi,’ interrupts Kitty. ‘This is my Dolce look. What do you think?’
‘What’s a Dolce look?’ says Sally.
‘Dolce & Gabbana. Sexy Italian label,’ I say.
‘If that means Flamenco slut, yeah, you’ve really got it,’ says Sally.
‘I wasn’t asking you, witch,’ says Kitty, out of Sally’s earshot.
‘It looks great,’ I say. ‘You’re a natural with an eyeliner pen.’
‘Can you take my picture then?’ she says. ‘On the roof?’
‘Kitty, I’m not going on the roof. Let’s just do it here.’
‘It’s way too hot in here. And there’s no space,’ she sulks.
‘Well, did he ask for full length or not?’
‘Head shots,’ she says.
‘So, we don’t need space,’ I say. ‘Just stand there. The light’s good.’
The soft daylight and the watercolour flowers on the curtains and my dressing gown are at odds with her thick foundation and hard scarlet mouth. Her pupils are like pinpricks.
‘I think you should be more natural,’ I say. ‘You look like you’re trying too hard.’
She thinks I mean her pose. Which I do, but it’s not just that.
‘This is exactly the same as Kim Kardashian does it.’
‘Yeah, and she looks like she’s trying too hard, too.’
I take some pics with her phone and flick through them.
‘Let’s have a look,’ she says.
‘Let me take some more first,’ I say, standing on my bed. ‘You look better when you don’t pose.’
‘Let’s have a look first,’ she says.
‘Keep doing that. Just being natural. Close your mouth. Your teeth look yellow.’
‘Just give me back my phone,’ she says, jamming her lips together. Getting angry.
‘I can take some more,’ I say, carrying on clicking.
‘Fuck off, Clare. Give me back my fucking phone!’ She tries to grab it.
‘God,’ I say, ‘I’m only trying to help you.’
‘I say when you help and when you don’t’ she says. ‘You’re not the one in charge here, Coco.’
I stop.
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Coco. Coco. Coco.’
‘You are fucking weird. Get out, Kitty.’
‘What about my next look? I need to do American leisure.’
‘Go away. Really, go away.’ I push her out of the bedroom.
‘But what is American leisure?’ she says, jamming her pink sneaker in the door so it won’t shut.
I push her. Not even that hard. Though she acts like I just tried to stab her or something.
‘You abused me! YOU ASSAULTED ME,’ she shouts. And slams the front door.
The pest man must have been because the airing cupboard door is open and all the shelves have been stacked against the radiator. I slam the door shut, before a horde of mice come charging down from the attic.
*
‘I hear you assaulted Kitty,’ says Sally, handing me a mug of tea.
‘News travels . . .’
‘She has a nasty habit of being assaulted. I’d like to have a go myself.’
‘She told Mrs Henry?’
‘She’s made a formal complaint, but honestly, no one took her seriously, particularly when she’s off her head, which she is, if you ask me, and if she stays down there with Mrs H much longer and she gets a whiff of it, then Kitty’ll be digging an even bigger hole for herself. What’s with all the photos?’
‘It’s the modelling thing.’
‘What’d you attack her for?’
‘I didn’t attack her. You know what she’s . . .’
‘You shouldn’t let her get to you.’
‘She kept saying my name was Coco. Said some tramp from the police station told her.’
Your name IS Coco.
‘What tramp?’ says Sally, looking away.
Looking confused.
You don’t even look like a Clare.
It’s common.
I don’t do common, babe.
‘Clare!’ says Sally. ‘What exactly did she say?’
‘I was on the roof with Kitty . . .’
‘You were on the fucking roof with Kitty?’
‘Shut up, if you want to hear. I was on the roof with Kitty and she said that she’d met a bloke from one of the squats down the other end of the road who asked about me, as in Coco, cos he remembered me from the police station. I don’t remember any of that.’
‘You don’t remember being at the police station?’
‘No, not really. You were there; he said, you were. I don’t remember anything much from that day really.’
‘Yes, I was there, but what did Kitty say next, that’s the important bit.’
‘She said that this tramp bloke had asked her if I was at the refuge, because she told him it was a refuge, and he asked her if there was another girl called Sally.’
‘Girl!’ says Sally, looking half-pleased. Then she frowns. ‘What’d he want to know for?’
‘I dunno, Sally, maybe he fancies you.’
‘Don’t you start.’
‘No, wait, she said something about how he’d bumped into someone who knew you. A relative of yours. A brother. He was looking for you because you’d disappeared. I think that’s what she said. Yeah, she said . . .’
Sally rushes into the bathroom.
‘Sally, where are you going?’
She’s knelt over the toilet.
‘Sally. Sal, what’s the matter? He’s only some junkie or something. Sal . . . Sal . . .’ I rub her shoulders. ‘Shall I get Mrs Henry? Sal?’ Frothy tea and purple jam. ‘Sal I’m going to get Mrs Henry.’
*
‘Why didn’t you tell Sally what Kitty said before? It’s not like you haven’t had time,’ Celia says, hugging her own stupid cardigan.
‘I don’t know. I forgot!’
This looks like a mothers’ meeting.
Mrs Henry is hunched over a coffee mug.
Sally is cradling a cardboard sick bowl.
Celia is fussing over everyone.
I don’t even know why Mrs Henry is having a go at me. I’m only trying to help here.
‘I’m astonished that you could forget something so important.’
‘I’m astonished that the police still haven’t found Gareth or Terry. Join the club.’
‘Where’s Kitty now?’ says Sally.
‘She’s at her dance class,’ says Mrs Henry, not looking up. ‘I hear you assaulted her this morning, Clare.’
‘I pushed her out of my room, Mrs Henry.’
‘She’s made a formal complaint.’
Sally coughs. ‘Can I stop you all, just for one second?’ she says.
We all stop and look at Sally.
‘Do you mind if I explain what’s going on here? Firstly, Kitty is not going to be at her dance class, she is with a model scout who has promised her the world. Secondly, when she does come back, chances are she will have taken a massive dive, even if Vogue have booked her for their next twelve covers, because she will be coming down off whatever she was high on this morning.’
‘High?’ says Celia. ‘I thought you didn’t . . .’ she says, looking at Mrs
Henry.
‘She . . .’ says Mrs Henry.
‘Wake up and smell the coffee,’ says Sally, dabbing at the corner of her mouth. ‘Third. What is third?’ she continues, screwing up the tissue into a ball. ‘Oh yeah. Today’s news. So, one of the lads from the police station, probably Barney, possibly one of the others, has been contacted by Terry. And that Barney knows where I’m living. What we don’t know is if he’s told Terry that yet. Where’s Sue?’
‘DS Clarke is on her way, but she’s had to divert to the hospital,’ says Mrs Henry. ‘Something about Chapman.’
‘I believe she was already looking to speak to Barney . . .’ says Celia.
‘We need to find out what Barney has said,’ says Mrs H.
‘Barney won’t have said anything, if it was him,’ says Sally. I think she’s sweet on him. ‘Barney’s a good guy. Known him for years.’
‘And Barney is not the threat here. It’s Terry,’ says Mrs H. ‘In situations like this you have to be extra vigilant,’ she goes on, stating the bleeding obvious, if you ask me. ‘Let’s not get distracted by Barney. Do we even have a description of Terry?’ she says. ‘All I’ve got is the cutting from the paper that’s in your file, but that’s from more than twenty years ago. I’m assuming he doesn’t look like this anymore.’ She hands the cutting to Sally, who passes it to me without looking down.
‘LIVERPOOL MAN FOUND GUILTY OF MURDERING WOMAN MISTAKEN FOR WIFE’ it says, in bold Daily Mirror type.
Two photos of blonde women, side by side, pretty, young, almost identical if you didn’t know, and a picture of a bungalow with a picket fence, and a dark green garage door.
The house is symmetrical, made of honey-coloured brick with a grey roof and a glass conservatory on one side.
And a man in the garden. Curly hair. Set mouth. Defiant jaw.
Sally watches me as she retches into the bowl. She wipes her mouth again.
‘It was only at the start he mistook me for Hayley,’ she says. ‘Came in through the patio windows and got hold of her from behind and had the knife right up to her neck before I walked in. Then he saw he had Hayley and not me and I saw the thought pass through his head, should he push her away and chase after me, and you know what he said?
‘He said to me “Guess what feels better than killing you?”
‘And he pushed the knife harder into her skin and he said “Watching you, while I kill your best friend, that’s what,” he said. And I begged him not to do it, begged him to let us go, or just kill me but not to kill Hayley, White Wine Hayley. She looked so fucking scared. So fucking scared. Her eyes—’
She throws up again.
And then Kitty walks in.
‘You won’t believe!’ she says. Then, without waiting for us to reply, ‘He hates my fucking pictures! Says I look like a slut.’
‘We’re in the middle of something, Kitty,’ says Mrs Henry. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Says the pictures are really good but that I’m not right for fashion. Wants to know if I’ve got any friends. So I told him, I said to him, I live in a fucking refuge, with a load of fucking misfits who deserve to have had the shit kicked out of them. I wish you were all fucking dead.’
She slams out of the room like a whirlwind. Sally sighs and leans back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. A tear follows a channel through her foundation down her cheek. She wipes it from the corner of her mouth.
Forty-Four
Sally
I don’t mind admitting that I could have slept all afternoon, but then Prashi’s youngest daughter knocks at the door and thank God Clare was there, because my face has swollen up from being sick and crying and I’m quite sure I’d have scared the pants off her if I’d answered it.
‘Mrs Henry says there’s a man here to see Sally and he’s not allowed in so she’ll have to go and sort it out.’
‘Thanks,’ says Clare. ‘Did you hear that?’
The urge to throw up comes back hard.
‘Tell her I’ll be down in five,’ I say, holding my mouth. I’ve only just woken up and still feel sick, but now I feel even worse, and I’m dehydrated too, so I’m drinking tap water like there’s no tomorrow, which I never do in London because they put all sorts of shite in the water here, including fluoride. If I want extra fluoride I’d eat toothpaste, wouldn’t I?
‘Are you OK?’ says Clare, through the bathroom door, which I open a crack and see she looks like she’s about to jump out the window herself.
‘Yes, I’ll be fine,’ I say, patting my face with water. ‘Terry wouldn’t be fool enough to come up the front door. Neither would his family. So, it’ll be Barney, I guess. Or Ryan.’
‘Do I look like I’ve just done ten rounds with Frank Bruno?’ I say.
‘I don’t know who Frank Bruno is, but if he’s a boxer, yes,’ she says.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Here, put some of this on,’ she goes, giving me some lip salve and mascara.
‘We’re in the wars, you and me, aren’t we?’ I say, putting on my jacket.
‘Who d’ya think’s here,’ she says. ‘You want me to come?’
‘It’ll just be Barney,’ I say. ‘If it was Terry we’d be hearing police sirens by now.’
‘You can hope,’ she says. ‘Not if Detective Sergeant Useless is on duty.’
‘Don’t be getting at her,’ I say, pulling my boots on and heading off down the stairs. ‘She’ll save the world one of these days.’
‘One psycho at a time,’ she shouts after me.
*
Barney is standing outside the front of the refuge. He has his back to me but I’d recognise that coat anywhere. Mrs H is talking to him from the front door. You won’t believe it, but she is actually laughing, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh, which only goes to show the charms of Barney, even if he is a tramp junkie.
‘. . . because we don’t let any guests in, particularly if they’re male,’ she’s saying. ‘Not even the Dalai Lama.’
I don’t hear his reply.
‘Well, you’re not because you don’t have the orange robes.’
‘I’m in disguise,’ he says, and he sees me over her shoulder, in the lobby.
‘And a very good disguise it is too, Mr Lama. Sally, don’t come out here. You don’t have to come out,’ she says. ‘Stay where you are and Barney can speak to you through the door.’
Mrs H wanders into the front yard, picking weeds out of the cracks in the concrete. Gving us some kind of polite privacy.
‘Sally, I just wanted to tell you that it’s all OK,’ he says. He’s sitting on the wall and I’m leaning on the door frame. Awkward like a pair of teenagers.
‘Calm down, Barn,’ I say. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, Sal, just happy to see you. You OK?’
‘Yes, Barney. Don’t worry. We’re all perfectly safe here.’
He’s twitchier than usual and he sees me looking for tics.
‘You still on the programme, Barney?’
‘Miss Parton,’ he says. ‘You know I wouldn’t let you down, now don’t you.’
He takes in a deep breath and I can almost hear him telling himself to calm down.
‘I didn’t tell him. That’s what I came to say. You know, didn’t tell him anything. He tried like. You know. But what I always say is, “Honour among thieves. Respect among the downtrodden”, that’s what I always say. Don’t I always say that, Sal?’ he says, looking round at Mrs H.
‘What didn’t you tell him?’ I say, pulling the door shut behind me so I can hear him better.
‘I was at the pub, you know, the one by the market,’ he says quietly, so Mrs H can’t hear. ‘We were all there, we were, you know me and Olly and Ryan and the rest.’ Mrs H has wandered to the end of the path and is looking up and down the road like she’s searching for a lost cat, or waiting for the postman, but I know she’s keeping her eyes peeled for a convicted murderer.
‘Got my benefit through, you know, like normal. And we
was sitting on the tables outside and there was this guy sitting near us, having a smoke. Seemed nice enough, you know. And I asked him where was he from, like you do, and he said he was from South Liverpool. And then he said Aigburth Road. And he said the Dingle. Posh end. Best place in the world.’
I want to be sick.
‘And I said, “That’s just what my friend Sally said, must be good this Dingle. Think I’ll take a trip there myself,” I says to him. And he goes mental, like. Grabs me by my collar like he’s gonna throttle me.’
Mrs H is getting twitchy herself now, like he’s making too much noise.
‘Barney, you should be telling this to DS Clarke, not Sally,’ she says, but he doesn’t stop.
‘And then he gets all calmed down, and that’s when he says he’s your long-lost brother, like, you know, and at the time,’ he says, ‘at the time,’ he nods, looking up at the sky, ‘I thought, it all sounded, you know, right, like . . . true and everything,’ he says, looking me in the eyes, then looking away. ‘So anyway,’ he says, looking up the street, like he’s suddenly in a bit of a hurry, ‘I just wanted you to know. And, you know, I didn’t tell him.’ He gives me a weak smile and shifts his foot, just a little.
‘What didn’t you tell him?’ I say, breathing as shallow as I can so I don’t throw up.
There’s a long silence.
‘That girl all right, is she?’ he says, like he didn’t hear what I said.
‘The girl with the bare feet? Coco?’ I say, thinking back to what Clare looked like when she first stumbled into the police station.
‘She didn’t die, then, from drinking the paraffin?’
‘It wasn’t paraffin,’ I say. ‘He told her it was, which is almost as bad as giving her the real thing, if you think how she must’ve felt.’
‘Some people are sick in the head.’
‘Yup, some people sure are sick in the head,’ I say. ‘He had this game he played with her,’ I say, checking that Mrs H is out of earshot. ‘It was called the matches game, and he used to tie her up, pour paraffin over her, then flick lit matches at her to see if she’d set on fire.’
‘You are fucking joking me,’ he says. ‘How does anyone come up with shit like that? What’s up with him?’
‘Psycho. There’s a lot of them around, Barn. You should watch out.’
