by Deborah Bee
‘If he was there, maybe it was because he was trying to stop Terry,’ whispers Sally, starting to cry again.
Mrs Henry is trying to console her.
She may as well have thrown a grenade with that little line. Sue looked like she was going to explode.
‘I’m furious with you both,’ says Susan. ‘You put your own lives in danger. You put everyone else’s lives in danger! What did I tell you both about trusting addicts?’
‘It might not have been. . .’ says Sally.
‘Oh, shut up Sal. Stop being so fucking naive. C’mon, Chapman. Let’s go and find out what exactly Mr Barney Pickard has been up to!’ she shouts.
She strides off down the hall, like she’s got the devil in her pants.
Fifty-Three
Sally
You could’ve heard a pin drop when Sue slammed out of the front door, seriously. I mean, we were all in a complete state of shock cos none of us had ever seen her lose her rag like that before.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t have lost her rag, because she’s right that I put them all at risk and I’m sorry that I put them all in that situation. But she’s a policewoman. Just saying . . .
‘Look,’ I say to everyone in the TV room when they let us back into it and Mrs H has washed the floor, ‘I’m sorry.’
They’re all there, all of them; Big Debbie with her pots of nail polish lined up like nothing has happened, Abigail and Sian, looking thick as thieves as usual, Prashi and the girls, who’ve had enough for one lifetime to be sure, and little Clare, tear-stained and dirty, looking like a hopeless child.
‘Look,’ repeats Big Debbie, slapping her file on the table, ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t get to smack some murdering bastard in the face every day,’ she says and she thinks for a minute then smiles a broad smile ‘. . . and get away with it!’ Everyone laughs and Abigail starts clapping, quietly mind, but clapping, and then we all start clapping.
‘I’m quite sure that Chief Constable Whatnot is right to be having a total blowout hissy-fit about something-or-other that none of us quite understand, least of all our Sally here, but . . .’ she waits for the noise to settle down ‘. . . I, for one, would like a drink!’
We all cheer, and Abigail grabs a bottle and starts unpeeling the foil top. Mrs Henry pops her head around the corner and tells us to shush but gives us a wink, and Sarah is handing around mugs. In no time we’ve all got a drink in our hands.
‘When you were crouching down,’ says Abigail, giggling and slurping out of a Frozen mug, ‘you reminded me of something.’
‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden DRAGON?’ says Sian, nodding like she really means it.
There was a pause, and we all looked at Abigail.
‘Erm,’ says Abigail, and we all screech our heads off, like a pack of hyenas.
‘Watch yourself, Abi,’ says Big Debbie, laughing. ‘I pack a powerful punch.’
‘I’ll bet Terry will vouch for that,’ says Clare giggling.
And they all look at me cautiously, to see if that’s OK to say, or if it’s too soon to make a bit of a joke like that, him being my ex and everything.
I start to cry, and Abigail shakes her head at Clare but I’m not crying about that; I’m crying cos I’m so sorry about Jay, and I know I did it all wrong and they are the nicest people in the world. Then we have another round of drinks and a group hug. Because that’s what women in a refuge are like. That’s how they are, after what they’ve been through.
Mrs H comes in with her serious face on. She’s had a call, she says – they haven’t located Barney. That’ll be what the police will have said. Located. Not a word she’d use normally. And she closes the curtains, not that that will do much good since they’re like old rags; you can see right through them when it’s dark out and the lights are on inside.
And the swish of the curtains and the set of Mrs H’s jaw takes the wind out of our sails, and we settle down, staring into the bottoms of our mugs.
Big Debbie’s talking about the time she represented England in the World Student Athletics championships, doing discus and shot, and how she did a heave (that’s what she said; I mean, I don’t know the terms) of 17.01 metres which was a personal best, but got beaten in the end by a South African girl who weighed nineteen stone, but it was muscle. Sarah’s all ears, Clare nudges me and winks. Then Mrs H pulls up the chair next to us, in the corner.
‘You’ve had quite a day.’ She looks at me steadily, like she’s trying to work me out. ‘I think you’d better think about going up to bed.’
‘You’ll be throwing me out tomorrow,’ I say. ‘I’ve got used to it here, used to having people around me.’
‘Perhaps with Terry back inside you can start to live a more normal life again,’ she says.
‘You’d think,’ I say.
‘Well, there’ll be some semblance of normality back in your life.’
And I think, what the hell does she know? Terry’s brothers will be blaming me for all this and what the hell was Barney actually doing? I check my phone. But there are no missed calls.
Fifty-Four
DS Clarke
DS Clarke is striding up Regent’s Park Road in a fury that she’s only felt a few times in her life. She can’t decide who to be angry with first. Sally for being stupid, Terry for being a monster or Barney for selling Sally out.
PC Chapman has gone to pick up the car from around the corner, so, for now she’s on her own and she’s not even slightly unhappy about that.
‘Dawn, I’m not scared of a couple of off-their-heads addicts,’ she’d said to PC Chapman. And that was three minutes ago, so Dawn should be here any second. In fact, Sue thinks, that could be her car now. But it isn’t.
Somehow, the street looks worse tonight. The street lamps have stopped working from about halfway up, some kind of act of defiance by the council, as though they are trying to punish the squatters by switching off the lights. The squatters won’t care – they prefer the dark.
Ryan is sitting on the pavement outside the squat, his back against the low front wall, head between his knees. As DS Clarke’s footsteps slow, he lifts he chin and juts it out to rest on his knees.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ he whispers.
‘Where is he?’ says DS Clarke.
‘Come to arrest me?’ he whispers. ‘Too late. ‘Can’t you see I don’t need any help right now, grandma?’
‘How much have you had, Ryan?’
He doesn’t reply. A line of spit connects the corner of his mouth to the moth-eaten collar of his coat.
‘Who were you expecting, Ryan?’
‘I have a very busy social calendar,’ he grumbles.
‘Who else?’
‘None of your business, grandma.’
‘Where is he?’ she says again.
Ryan doesn’t answer. His head has sunk back into his collar. She kicks his shoe and his foot slides forwards. His knee drops to the ground and his head jerks up out of the coat again.
‘What is it?’ he whispers, his throat hoarse.
‘Barney?’ she says, tapping her foot. ‘Remember him?’
‘You must’ve missed him. I don’t know where either of them are . . .’ he trails off.
‘Who was the other visitor?’ says DS Clarke, stepping past Ryan as he sinks back into his oblivion.
‘I don’t suggest you go in, grandma. Not unless you want your throat slashed.’
She steps over Ryan’s legs and walks up the pathway and into the front hall.
‘Barney!’ she shouts. ‘Get on down here.’
There’s no reply. Just a scraping sound on bare floorboards.
‘Barney!’
Nothing.
Only the sound of her own breathing, then the sound of Ryan groaning as he struggles to stand up and starts stumbling up the path behind her, blocking what light there is and plunging the hall into darkness.
A car door slams.
Footsteps running up the road
.
‘Sarge. SARGE!’
‘Chapman, what is it? I’m in here.’ Her voice sounds thin, even to herself.
She edges backwards out of the hallway, turns sideways past Ryan, holding her breath so she doesn’t smell him, and turns to face Chapman on the pathway.
‘Sarge! I think we need you back at the station . . .’ She’s out of breath.
‘Did something happen, Chapman? Is everything all right?’
‘Is everything all right, Chapman?’ mimics Ryan from behind her, as he flips a lighter. ‘Oh, Chapman, save me, save me!’
‘It’d better be good,’ she says, under her breath, holding Chapman’s shoulders in an attempt to calm her down.
‘Sarge, Tom Bohrer has come back. Bohrer from IT. He got that Crime Prevention Data request back about the email addresses. You know, the ones on Gareth’s laptop.’
‘And? What’s so urgent?’
‘They’re all registered to 289, Oval Road.’
‘Shit! All of them?’
‘All of them.’
‘To who?’
‘Mr Gareth James. He’s the registered owner of all the email addresses.’
‘Sending messages to himself. Smart. He’s smarter than we thought. A lot smarter . . .’
Chapman’s phone buzzes.
‘Sarge, there’s news from the hospital.’ Chapman’s eyes glow in the glare of her phone.
‘Now what!’ says DS Clarke.
‘Terry Mansfield died ten minutes ago . . . What shall we do, sarge?’
‘I guess we go give Clare and Sal the news . . .’
Fifty-Five
Clare
‘I thought you’d gone!’ shouts Sally down the hall to Susan.
Sally’s a bit drunk.
Susan’s talking to the security team at the front desk.
Chapman is standing next to her, looking out of breath.
Derek is putting on his reflective coat.
He takes up sentry duty outside the front door as Susan comes down the hall to talk to us.
‘We haven’t found Barney yet,’ says Susan. ‘You will stay away from the windows, and you may not use the front exit. Not until I say so,’ she says, looking from one pale face to the next. ‘If anyone sees him outside the building you must let security know immediately. In fact, I would recommend that we adopt a code red until further notice.’
Sally mouths at me, ‘What’s a code red,’ and I try not to giggle.
‘Sal, it’s about Terry.’
Sally shuts up and the blood drains out of her face as Susan sits down next to her, perched on the edge of the plastic chair.
‘Sal, he’s dead. Heart attack.’
‘I see,’ says Sally quietly, twisting her hands together.
Susan nods, slowly. ‘A massive heart attack. Obviously they did everything they could. But I imagine that we all feel it’s for the best,’ she says. ‘You know it is.’
Sally shrugs.
‘It’s over,’ Susan says.
‘It’s over,’ Sally repeats. ‘Fucking ’ell,’ she says. ‘That’s it then, right?’ she says. And I smile at her, because that’s kind of the best news, really.
‘I have some other news,’ Susan says, looking directly at me.
‘What?’ I say, my stomach somersaulting. By her face I can already tell it’s gonna be bad.
‘Well, Gareth . . .’ says Susan.
‘What about him?’ Sally says, interrupting, her voice impatient, the wine talking again.
‘Well, the good news is that all the email addresses that Gareth was contacting, his friends who were helping him get through his “difficult life” and lending him money? They’re all registered under his name,’ she says, with a half-smile.
‘Is that good?’ I say, thinking: because I always told you he was a manipulative bastard.
‘It makes your story add up,’ says Dawn, over Susan’s shoulder.
‘My story always added up,’ I say, and Sally pats me on the arm.
‘Be thankful for small mercies,’ she laughs, ‘and more Prosecco.’
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ says Susan. ‘Maybe—’
‘Oh, give me a break an’ all, Detective Sergeant I’m-in-Charge! We deserve a bit of a laugh.’
‘Did you tell her about the journal as well?’ Dawn says to Susan. ‘Did you pick up the message I left earlier?’
‘No, what did it say?’
‘That the Turnitin software showed up that 57.3 per cent of the journal was copied directly from online sources.’
‘What’s that mean?’ I say to Sally, who’s looking unusually triumphant.
‘It means that I’m DA MAN!’ says Sally, high-fiving Susan.
‘Someone get me a mug,’ says Susan, looking relieved.
‘It’s youth speak,’ says Mrs H to Sian, who’s staring at us, looking confused.
‘So, you know the journal was a load of bollocks?’ I say.
They all nod. And I feel hot tears explode from my eyes like in kids’ cartoons.
Then someone says, ‘Where’s Kitty?’
No one has seen Kitty since she had her meltdown and the sedative must have worn off by now.
It does seem weird she hasn’t shown her face, what with all the sirens and alarms going off. Not like her to miss a drama.
Then I remember her sitting on the side in the kitchen, waiting for her toast while the chicken was on fire.
‘Perhaps leave her alone,’ says Mrs Henry. ‘She’s had a bad day. Those fashion people are so shallow. Say anything, do anything to get the next big thing. I’ll check on her later.’
Susan says it’s way past her bedtime and gives us all a hug. Halfway down the hall she comes back and tells us that we must all still be vigilant, that Gareth and Barney represent a real threat. Sally just nods, and looks like she might keel over any minute.
Prashi starts talking about going to bed. Her girls are going to wake her up in about five hours. But then Aiysha, whose eldest saw her drinking a glass of wine earlier, insists that they should have a nightcap and they’re back in the middle of the action. Abigail and Sian are laughing so hard they’ll have sore heads in the morning.
Sarah is boring the pants off anyone who will listen about how she’s afraid of spiders. And how she got into the Italia Conti Stage School in 1978 but her mum and dad wouldn’t let her go. Said it was too full of common people. Bad influence.
‘And that’s why I’m fat,’ she finishes, slamming down her Minnie Mouse mug and spilling half the remaining Prosecco on the table.
‘Nah,’ slurs Big Debbie, ‘you’re fat because you eat too much,’ she says. ‘Same as me.’
And Sarah starts to laugh.
Mrs Henry tells them to shush.
All the lights are off.
*
In the end, we’re the first to go up but in fairness, Sally’s the most pissed.
‘I can’t believe it,’ says Sally.
‘What? That Sarah was invited to go to the Italia Conti Stage School? Gareth went there,’ I whisper.
‘I meant about Terry,’ she says, trying to negotiate the stairs. ‘But I don’t believe that either.’
‘He said he did,’ I whisper, still thinking about Gareth. ‘Said a lot of shit. I was asking him, one day you know, what he was going to do with his life. How he was going to contribute, to humanity, and, oh yeah, help pay the bills.’
Sally snorts, misses a step and falls onto the handrail.
‘Pretty simple question,’ she slurs.
‘You’d think,’ I say.
We reach the first floor.
There are dimmed lights on the landing.
‘First off he said he’d like to start a rock band. And then he told me he had plans to leave for LA soon. Said he had some friends who were opening a fashion store and they needed his eye.’
‘Because there’s nothing he doesn’t know about fashion, right?’
‘And then, like on
e minute later, he said he was thinking of applying to Juilliard to do a Masters.’
‘What’s Juilliard?’
‘It’s like the best music conservatory in America.’
‘Didn’t know he was that good.’
‘He wasn’t. He could manage a pretty good Celine Dion in the shower.’
‘Even I . . .’ Sally starts, laughing loudly at the same time, and I shush her, but there’s so much noise coming from downstairs that I’m sure we aren’t disturbing anyone, and me shushing her made her laugh all the more.
I clap my hand over her mouth and she bites my finger. I scream.
Sally has to cling on to the handrail and sit down for a minute.
‘So anyway, then he fixed me with a very serious look and said, “I’m going to tell you something now which is entirely private, and you will not tell a soul. I think I’m going to a Buddhist monastery retreat in Bhutan for a year.” ’
Sally can’t get up. I think she’s about to pee herself she is laughing so hard.
‘You’ve got to tell Sue,’ she says, gasping. ‘She’ll be on the next plane.’
She stops laughing.
‘What?’ I say, concerned, wiping tears of laughter from under my eyes. ‘What? What is it?’
She’s frowning.
There’s a smell of something wrong.
I don’t know why.
It’s just not the usual smell you get at the top of the stairs.
I don’t know what it is.
There’s light spilling from our flat door, down the stairs.
The front door is open, and as we get higher up the stairs, we can see all our stuff is everywhere.
We pick our way across the sitting room.
The bathroom has been smashed up.
The shower curtain pulled down.
The sofa cushions have been slashed.
The mattresses are ripped open.
And every bottle of shampoo and shower gel, deodorant, perfume, splatted and crunched into the carpet. Bits of mirror reflecting the light.
The pages from magazines and books are flapping.
All our clothes are torn and Sally’s suitcases have been flung against the window.
‘Fucking Kitty,’ I say. ‘Fucking Kitty!’
