by Sarah Hilary
Afraid that if she took too long choosing a path, she’d become that girl again. The one who crept from her parents’ house while Greg and Lisa Rome were sleeping and caught the first bus into town, to a place where she could pay a man with the cleanest hands she’d ever seen to inscribe her teenage skin with black, stinging secrets.
8
Not her in the ambulance. A stranger, big bloke with an oxygen bag over his face.
No one he knew.
He wiped the steam from the inside of the windscreen with the damp cuff of his overalls again. Under the peaked cap – I ♥ London – his mouth shifted to a smile.
Not her.
Then doors were opening and closing, police everywhere, and he had to start the car, pull away. He couldn’t risk them catching him. He shouldn’t be driving, too many points on his licence apart from anything else, but how was he supposed to get around?
The police’d love to pick him up. He knew that.
He parked two streets away, the engine running, wipers slicking rain so he could keep watch for them leaving, red tail lights telling him the coast was clear. He didn’t need much. Just a chance. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe less.
Street lights were coming on, too early as usual. London trying too hard, thinking it could throw up a new building and no one would notice the shit on every street corner, the beggars and hen parties, puddles of puke, and whores everywhere.
He’d watched TV the other night, some crap with a bent politician who’d punched a bloke into a coma and couldn’t stop crying about it, standing round in the rain, snot running down his face. The camera kept filming London from the air, trying to make it look like LA, with skyscrapers and fancy helipads, what a fucking joke. London never looked like that, not from down here, where life was lived.
He waited ten minutes, then drove around the block, back to within eyeshot of the refuge. Rain had made a river of the driveway, washing off the roof in a filthy waterfall.
The unmarked Mondeo was still there, and the two police cars, but they hadn’t been for him, or her. It was just a coincidence.
People didn’t believe in coincidences; they looked the other way. That was what he needed right now. Just ten minutes, or twenty, when everyone was looking the other way and he could do it . . .
Do her.
The refuge didn’t look too safe, not much of a hiding place. Silly bitch, thinking he couldn’t get to her in there. Failing all else, there was a fucking great hole in the roof.
He didn’t need a lot of time. He’d have liked the luxury of taking his time, but those days were gone, he knew that; no more slow dances, seeing her squirm.
This time it’d be hard and fast – and over with. She wouldn’t be running and hiding when he was done with her.
He reckoned he needed twenty minutes, tops.
9
You fucking evil bitch your dead. You think your safe. Think again cunt.
Blue biro had scratched the words on to a sheet of lined paper, torn roughly from a notepad. The ink had clotted in places, thinned in others. The author had gone back over some of the words, where his pen had failed.
Marnie Rome held the page to the hospital’s overhead light, studying the clots and scratches, the scarred surface of the sheet.
You could tell a lot about a person from his handwriting. From what he wrote, the pen and paper he chose. You could tell the surface he wrote on, whether he was drunk or ill. It was all in the indents and impressions. Even if you didn’t have the original, if all you had was the pad he used. Indents went deep, and you could create a vacuum on the blank page – run an electric bar over it, glass beads with carbon powder that stuck to the indents and revealed words like magic. Marnie had worked with a police documents examiner. She knew all about the tricks, the science involved.
You think your safe. Think again cunt. Not much magic needed here. No secret messages. Just three lines of hate-fuelled threat.
Marnie had found the letter in Hope Proctor’s bag, unsigned.
She had no immediate way of knowing whether Leo Proctor had written it. She’d looked through his wallet, but the signature strips on his bank cards were worn to smudges; it was all chip-and-pin these days. She took out her phone and called Noah Jake. ‘I need an example of Leo’s handwriting.’
‘Okay,’ Noah said. ‘What’ve you found?’
‘Not much.’ She turned the sheet of paper in her hand. ‘Just a little light reading, courtesy of an illiterate . . . Where are you?’
‘At the station, getting a change of clothes. How’s Leo?’
‘Alive, the last I heard. Try to get me a sample of his handwriting. Maybe there’s something in Hope’s things at the refuge. And see if you can speak with Ayana. You’ve got a connection with her.’
‘A connection?’ Noah echoed.
‘She helped you keep Leo alive. You made a good team. Use that. See if you can’t get what Welland wanted from this.’
‘You think she’ll talk to me, alone?’
‘You’re not alone. You have Family Liaison. And I’ve asked Ed Belloc to drop by later. Just . . . see how Ayana feels. I’m betting she’ll talk to you. Sometimes it helps to be a stranger.’
‘Okay,’ Noah said. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good. I’ll see you back there after I’ve spoken with the doctor, and Hope.’ She rang off, checking her wristwatch.
In eight hours, it would be tomorrow. The fifth anniversary of their deaths. What’d she said to Welland?
I’m not counting.
Right, then.
She folded the threatening letter and put it in her pocket. She had to discount it, for now; dangerous to second-guess what Noah might come back with. The letter might not even match Leo’s handwriting, or he could’ve disguised his writing; the bad grammar could be deliberate misdirection. Hope was articulate, intelligent. How likely was Leo to be illiterate? He worked on a building site. Marnie didn’t know much more than that. Not yet. She needed the doctor’s exam to confirm how badly he’d abused his wife. She sympathised with Hope’s effort to salvage some shred of dignity and privacy after the events of the morning, but she’d insisted on the exam. Hard evidence, Welland called it.
Hope Proctor had put a knife into her husband’s lung. Marnie needed to know how, and why. At the refuge, Simone Bissell had said, ‘She can’t see straight. She puts things on the edge of tables and spills stuff all the time. He’s hit her so much she can’t see straight any more. She didn’t know where she was sticking that knife.’
She stuck it in her husband’s chest, deep enough to puncture his lung.
Leo was a big man. A big target.
Hope was scared, at the end of her rope. Marnie could believe that. The threatening letter was opaque in places, where Hope had handled it with sweating hands. It was possible she’d panicked, pushed the knife into Leo’s chest in blind terror.
A kitchen knife. Black handle, sweeping steel blade. Thirty quid; maybe forty in a good shop. A proper piece of kitchen kit, endorsed by a celebrity chef, his signature printed in black on the silver blade, and again in silver on the sleek black handle.
Marnie had the knife in an evidence bag back at the station. It balanced beautifully in her hand. At least she imagined it did; she’d yet to work up the courage to touch it.
A hospital porter pushed an empty trolley through swing doors at the end of the corridor, the sound like a small explosion.
‘She’s ready for you.’ The doctor, bespectacled, thirty-something, looked weary as he approached.
‘What’s the verdict?’ Marnie asked.
‘I’ve seen worse cases, but they tend to be working girls. Vaginal bruising consistent with object insertion.’ He referred to his notes, reading in a routinely bland voice. ‘Bite marks to her breasts and thighs. Fissures and scarring consistent with a prolonged history of anal sex. Surface bruising to her arms and legs. A belt most probably caused the bruises on her back. The sorts of injuries you might expect to see on someone
indulging in sadomasochistic sex.’
This had happened in Hope’s home. Behind closed doors.
Marnie’s skin shivered; the sensation as familiar to her as yawning.
Home sweet home.
Did that exist for anyone, anywhere?
‘The examination upset her,’ the doctor was saying. ‘I prescribed a sedative. You’ll want to be gentle with her, although there’s nothing wrong with her intellect.’ He gave a shrewd, admiring smile. ‘She’s not in the mood to be patronised.’
‘How’s her husband, any change?’
‘None at all.’ He referred to a separate set of notes. ‘I can tell you he has liver damage, long-term, not yet acute.’
‘He’s an alcoholic?’
‘Almost certainly. His blood alcohol level indicates he’d been drinking heavily in the two hours before he was admitted.’
In other words, Leo Proctor went to the refuge armed and blind drunk.
‘Apart from that? Minor injuries consistent with his work in construction, and his pastime of rugby. According to his hospital records, we’ve treated him for cracked ribs on a couple of occasions, contact-sport injuries. Eight months ago, we treated him for two broken bones in his right hand. We call it a boxer’s fracture.’
‘Boxer’s fracture?’ Marnie repeated. ‘Does that mean he broke his hand hitting someone?’
‘Or something. A work-related injury, according to the records.’
‘Can you give me dates and details?’ She scanned the sheet of paper he handed her. Leo Proctor broke his hand eight months ago. Hitting something, or someone. Hope was living at home eight months ago. She pocketed the sheet, next to the threatening letter. ‘How soon after he wakes up can we talk to him?’
‘We’ve inserted a chest drain. Between that and the blood loss, he’s best off unconscious. A punctured lung’s a serious injury, especially when it involves a knife wound.’
‘She panicked,’ Marnie said. ‘That’s what the witnesses say.’
‘Just bad luck she found his lung.’ He looked again at Hope’s medical notes. ‘Or good luck . . . The cut to her hand, incidentally, is superficial. To answer your question, it’s too soon to say when he’ll come round.’
‘But he will? Come round.’
‘That’s our expectation at this stage.’
Leo Proctor wasn’t going to die. Good. Marnie wanted to question him, and she wasn’t inclined to be gentle, the way she intended to be with his wife.
‘Something else,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ve no idea if it’s significant.’ He nodded at his notes. ‘They have matching tattoos.’
‘They . . .’
‘We nearly missed it on him, too much blood for one thing. Hers is, ah, just beneath her right breast.’ This embarrassed him in a way the sexual abuse didn’t. ‘A heart with an arrow through it.’ He grimaced. ‘Hardly the most original sentiment.’
‘Where’s his?’ Marnie’s skin was burning under her ribs, and above her hips. ‘You said you nearly missed it. Where’s his tattoo?’
‘The same place.’ The doctor rubbed at his spectacles with a forefinger. ‘It’s why we nearly missed it. Because of the mess.’
He wiped his finger on his white coat. ‘The tattoo is exactly where the knife went in. Bullseye, I suppose you’d say.’
10
‘My name in Ethiopian is beautiful flower.’ Ayana Mirza sat at the foot of her bed, in her narrow room at the refuge. ‘In Kashmiri, Ayana means day of judgement.’
‘Your brother . . .’ Noah began.
‘Nasif. It means most just.’ Her smile twisted. ‘Another of my brothers, Turhan, is of mercy.’
‘Nasif . . . is a suspect in a serious assault.’
Ayana lifted her chin, showing the blind white of her ruined eye. ‘Again?’
‘This attack was with a scimitar. A man lost his hand.’
Ayana bit her lips together as if to stop herself from speaking. Silence stuffed the small bedroom. Noah looked around. No wardrobe, just a hanging rail for clothes, holding a couple of chain-store jumpers and a jersey skirt. Lined curtains covered the windows. The walls had been repainted so many times the gloss resembled pimpled skin. A shallow desk held a pile of library books and coursework from the remote-learning school. Nothing else in the room belonged to Ayana, not even the red dress she was wearing; she’d had no time to pack a bag when she left home.
‘I promised you this.’ Noah held out the phone top-up card. He’d put ten pounds on it, thinking twenty would be too much, might seem insulting.
‘Thank you.’ She took the card, stroking it with her thumb.
‘Your uncles have spoken up for Nasif. Everyone in your family has. They say he’s very gentle. He has no history of violence.’
Ayana nodded, as if she accepted this. ‘Of course.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘I know you do not need my statement, to take action.’ Ayana dipped her head at the sound of the television leaking from the dayroom. ‘The police can act independently.’
Noah smiled at her. ‘Is this from your distance-learning course?’
‘It’s true.’ Ayana gestured precisely with her slim hands. ‘The police are no longer reliant on a victim’s statement and can act independently.’
‘The victim isn’t any help to us in this case.’
‘Will they kill him, if he helps you? That is what my family will do, to me.’ Ayana reached into the pocket of her red dress. She took out a cloth purse. ‘Do you know what is in here?’ She loosened the drawstring. ‘Seed pods.’ From the open neck of the purse: the spicy scent of garam masala. ‘It’s the smell of home.’ Her smile made Noah’s chest hurt. ‘I keep this to remind myself. That it was never as simple as good and bad, safe and dangerous. Do you understand?’
Noah understood. Home, for Ayana, was a rich mix of love and loyalty, honour and obedience, reward and punishment. He understood this, but he still wanted her to speak up, speak out. She wouldn’t be free until she did. He wondered which of the women at the refuge had purchased the seed pods for her, or whether she’d been carrying the purse when she ran from the house, after the bleach attack.
‘I miss home,’ she said simply. ‘When I miss it too much, when I’m tempted to use this?’ Holding up her cheap mobile phone with its chipped cover. ‘I make myself remember the bad things as well as the good.’ She dropped the phone back into the seed pods and fastened the neck of the purse. Through the wall behind her head, the television purred. She hooked her hair behind her ears and said matter-of-factly, ‘Nasif has a sword. My uncle gave it to him when Nasif was six. It isn’t a toy.’
‘Did you see him use it?’
‘Only as a game. To show off.’ She folded her hands in her lap again. ‘Sometimes he pretended he would use it if I wasn’t behaving at school, but it was a game. He is a coward, like Turhan and Hatim. None dares do anything without the others.’ She moved her gaze around the room. ‘My mother kept me at home, learning to be a good wife, like her. To be unhappy, like her. My brothers took me to school when she allowed it. It was their duty to watch me there. If I talked to Western children, especially boys, they would report it. Sometimes they reported it even when I hadn’t talked to anyone. I was bringing shame on the family. Who would want to marry a girl like that? And what else is there for me but marriage?’ Her gaze returned to Noah. ‘It isn’t only girls. I know boys whose families have forced them into marriages they didn’t want. Beaten them, for refusing to marry.’
‘You could speak out against it. Against the sort of violence you suffered.’
‘In a court?’ Her smile was sad. ‘And then what, return here? They would find me. They’ve told everyone they know. And they know many people. People who work in shops, or drive taxis. Even in hospitals. You don’t know what it is to be always watched, by everyone, to be under constant surveillance.’
They were getting nowhere, turning in circles. Ayana was convinced of her powerlessness, seemed almost
to relish it. Noah had been wrong: he didn’t understand her at all. He needed to check Hope’s room, for letters from Leo. ‘Can you tell me about what happened with Hope and Leo this morning?’
Ayana smoothed the skirt of her dress. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Was it the first time you’d seen Leo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everyone was in the dayroom,’ Noah said. ‘Is that usual?’
‘Yes. After breakfast, we watch television. We take it in turns to make coffee or tea. It helps us to feel part of a family. We watch television together. Like normal people.’
Daytime television. Her definition of normal.
‘Leo Proctor arrived just after nine o’clock,’ Noah said. ‘Is that right?’
‘It was nine twenty. Lorraine was finishing.’
‘You were all in the dayroom. Hope, Simone and the others.’
Ayana counted on her fingers. ‘Hope, Simone, Mab, Shelley and Tessa, and me.’
‘Where was Jeanette?’
Again, Ayana counted on her fingers. ‘Smoking outside. Sneaking into our rooms. Eating the food in the fridge.’
‘She was in the dayroom when we arrived.’
‘She came in just before you did and started screaming as soon as she arrived. She was the only one of us making a noise.’
‘Who saw Leo first?’ Noah asked. ‘Was it Hope?’
‘Probably. The rest of us were watching television, but she isn’t very interested in it. Not just Lorraine. Anything.’ Ayana returned her hands to her lap. ‘She’s nervous, cannot settle to anything.’
‘Early days for her, isn’t it? I expect everyone takes a while to settle in.’
‘She’s been here three weeks. She was getting worse, not better.’ It was clear from her tone that she disapproved of Hope’s failure to settle at the refuge.
‘Worse in what way?’
‘Always moving around. Restless, as if she didn’t want to be here.’
