by Paula Daly
Carrie is a little startled by Avril’s sudden interrogation, as indeed is Tess. They have discussed Avril taking more of a lead – becoming less of the good cop to Tess’s bad cop, but after Avril’s punch in the face, and subsequent admission about the fantastical element of her relationship status, Tess did not expect Avril to jump in quite so readily.
‘And how did you know where Ella lived?’ Avril continues, ploughing on.
Carrie has lowered her head as if she doesn’t want to answer.
‘You say she was an acquaintance of yours,’ presses Avril, ‘but had you been to her home in the past?’
Carrie says she hadn’t.
‘So how did you know where Ella lived, Carrie?’
Reluctantly, Carrie replies, ‘I followed Pete.’
‘OK, so you followed him.’
Carrie nods.
‘Just once?’ asks Avril.
‘A couple of times.’
Avril leans in. ‘How many times are we talking about here, Carrie? Twice? More than twice? How many times was it?’
‘Four times,’ she tells them.
Back in the car, exiting the prison grounds, Tess is issuing instructions to Avril. ‘Grab my phone out of my bag and dial the last number I called.’ Avril pulls Tess’s bag on to her knee. ‘You were great in there by the way,’ she tells Avril. ‘You caught Carrie off guard. I liked how you handled her. It was a good time to step up and take the lead … But why the hell does Carrie tell us now she stalked him?’ she says, dumbfounded. ‘Why wait until now?’
‘Well, she wasn’t exactly stalking him,’ replies Avril. ‘She was married to him.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘OK, then she doesn’t tell us because it doesn’t look good,’ says Avril. ‘She follows her husband multiple times when he’s having an affair and is then charged with his lover’s murder. Would you confess to stalking him?’
‘She’s supposed to tell us everything. She knows that.’
‘Yeah, but would you? I don’t think I would.’
Tess doesn’t answer. Avril finds the phone and holds it out for Tess to apply her thumbprint to disable the lock, just as they are driving past the airport runway. A plane is taking off, heading towards them, and Tess thinks she could just do with a holiday right now. Somewhere hot. An all-inclusive, so she could pour cocktails down her throat without worrying about the price.
‘Is this the number?’ Avril asks. ‘01524 73—’
‘That’s it.’
‘OK, I’m dialling.’
The call automatically connects to the car’s Bluetooth and Tess clears her throat in readiness.
‘Stone Jetty Café. Steph speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Steph, hi, it’s Tess Gilroy calling again from Innocence UK.’
There’s a moment of silence, before they hear, ‘I said I didn’t want to be part of any—’
‘Yes, yes, I know what you said,’ replies Tess flatly. ‘And I appreciate that. But what I don’t think you’re appreciating is that Carrie Kamara’s going to spend fifteen years of her life in prison for something she might not have done. Just think about that for a moment. How do you think you would cope, day in day out, being separated from your family? How would you cope, Steph, knowing the truth was out there, but no one cared enough to take a second look at the evidence?’
Silence.
Avril gives Tess a worried look.
Tess presses on. ‘I’m not saying that you have to want to do this. I get it. I understand. You miss your friend. Something truly horrible happened to her and you don’t want to have to think about that again. So I understand that you don’t want to meet me. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Not if you’re a compassionate human being who could put herself in someone else’s shoes, not if—’
‘Tomorrow,’ says Steph.
‘Tomorrow?’ replies Tess, surprised her admonishment has had some effect.
‘Yeah, I’ve got a day off.’
Four Years Ago
THE BLANKET IS tangled between Carrie’s legs and her hair is plastered to the side of her face. The room is silent and for a brief moment, a wonderful moment, in fact, she’s not sure where she is. And then it hits her. She swallows, trying her best to be brave. She is in a police cell. She has been arrested and she’s in a cell.
She can’t believe she slept. She really tried not to fall asleep, even though her body was crying out for it, even though her head seemed as though it was in a vice and the handle was turning, slowly, slowly, the jaws threatening to crush her skull to nothing. She’s heard that those who sleep whilst in custody are the guilty ones. The innocent can never rest: too terror-stricken. So she made a valiant effort to stay awake. She really did. But now it’s too late. They have cameras in the cells and they would have seen her resting, her breathing slow and shallow, her face slack. She’s annoyed at herself but can do nothing to rectify it.
They can keep her here for twenty-four hours without charge and if she had to take an educated guess, she’d say she’s been here for around sixteen. But she has no way of knowing for sure. The cell is without a window so she has no sense of the time of day. Every hour that passes means she’s one step closer to leaving. She’s watched the TV programmes; she knows they’ll need a watertight case against her for the CPS to authorize a charge. And she really can’t see how that’s possible. It seems incredible to her that they found anything at all.
She wonders if they’ll work all night. It seems cruel to ask that of an officer. How do they keep going? Do they have beds where they can take a power nap? And what about their children? Who tends to them if they’re delayed at work, trying to prevent a murderer from being released because of a lack of evidence?
That’s what she is now: a murderer. That’s how everyone will think of her. Even if all this comes to nothing. They’ll know she was a suspect. They’ll know all about Ella and Pete and they’ll say that it was some sort of sick love triangle. Only Carrie couldn’t play by the rules of the game and so had to stick the knife in. Stick the knife in over and over until all of Ella’s blood drained from her.
She thinks of Pete and Ella fucking.
She laughs. It’s a hollow laugh.
Pete never really knew what to do with a woman. Didn’t know which buttons to press. Didn’t know how to get the right response. And yet he was never short of offers. This is something that’s always puzzled Carrie. Why, when there was little in it for them, did these women continue? She couldn’t understand it. But perhaps the bigger question was why, after all the porn Pete watched, was he still so completely inept? His mother always said he was a terrible student. She said he’d look at the blackboard and it just wouldn’t sink in. Perhaps it’s that, thinks Carrie.
The service hatch drops open with a clatter and Gillian Frain’s face fills the gap. She looks tired. She ought to be allowed home. It’s not right that someone is required to put this many hours in without a break. ‘Your solicitor is here, Carrie. Do you want to get yourself together?’
Carrie’s unsure what Gillian means exactly. Is she supposed to fix her hair? Touch up her make-up?
The service hatch closes and she waits at the door for it to be unlocked. Her triceps ache as well as the area in and around her armpits. She doesn’t know if this is from being held up by the two officers who dragged her into the cell earlier, or if it’s from Gavin’s aqua-aerobics and all that arm circling. It crosses her mind that if she’d plumped for horse riding instead of that ridiculous class she could’ve cantered off into the distance at the sight of Gillian Frain and the other arresting officer. Too late now though. Too late for anything now.
Now
IT’S SATURDAY. TESS makes her way to the Midland Hotel in Morecambe to interview Steph Reynolds alone. Avril, unlike Tess, does have a life, and is attending a cousin’s wedding somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales. She’s keen for an update though and so Avril will call Tess – some time during the interlude that comes between the
ceremony and the speeches, when the photographs are taken, when everyone would benefit from a lovely nap to keep them going so that they can make it through to the disco later – and Tess will report on what Steph has to say about Ella Muir’s murder.
The Midland underwent a sympathetic renovation and reopened its doors for business in 2008. It draws quite a crowd now, apparently, and Tess has had an itch to step inside since she returned to Morecambe. During her youth it was run down, ‘haemorrhaging money’ her dad used to say, and even the filming of Poirot within its walls didn’t arrest its demise.
Tess circles the car park for the third time, looking for a space. She checks the clock. She’s running late. A woman in a suit and killer heels exits the hotel and signals to Tess by waving her keys in Tess’s direction. ‘I’m going,’ she mouths expressively and Tess presses her palms together and bows her head at the woman as if her prayers have been answered. She drives into the space, facing the hotel steps, and her phone rings. The car’s Bluetooth connects and Tess hits ‘accept’.
‘Hi,’ the voice says, a little unsure, ‘it’s Steph. I’m here but I’m nervous to go inside on my own. It’s a bit fancy for me so I’ll wait for you on the steps. If that’s OK?’
‘Sure.’ Tess is reaching for her handbag in the passenger footwell before grabbing her coat from the back seat. ‘That’s fine. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
She catches sight of the girl on the steps with the phone clamped to her ear. She’s clear-skinned and pretty. There’s something familiar about her. Her hair is braided over the top of her head.
Tess freezes.
She stares at the girl.
‘Fuck,’ she whispers.
Frantically, Tess rummages through her handbag, trying to locate the letter given to her by Bill Menzies, the lawyer. She finds it and pulls it out. ‘Are you still there?’ Steph is saying via the car’s Bluetooth, and Tess doesn’t answer. She’s unfolding the letter, examining the photograph. She looks between the hotel steps and the photograph in her hand.
‘Fuck,’ she whispers again. ‘Fuck.’
It’s the same girl. How has this happened?
Tess scans the letter. Only this time she reads right to the end. All the way down to the name that she was too cowardly to read the first time around. ‘Love Stephanie’, it says.
Now there is no doubt. The girl on the steps is Tess’s daughter. The girl with information about Ella Muir’s murder is Tess’s daughter.
Tess closes her eyes just as Steph’s voice fills the car. ‘Are you there?’ she’s asking. ‘I don’t know if you can hear me … I think we’ve been cut off. I’m going to call you back.’
Steph is now staring at Tess. From the steps, she’s looking at Tess through the windscreen of the car, an expression of puzzlement on her face. She seems to know that this is the woman that she is supposed to meet.
Tess watches as Steph takes the phone from her ear and frowns. She taps it a couple of times and again Tess’s car is filled with the sound of the girl, the sound of her daughter, trying to make a connection.
Tess can feel bile rising in her throat. Her hands are shaking on the wheel.
Can Steph hear the ringing phone inside Tess’s car? She is looking in Tess’s direction, no longer frowning, but now hopeful.
Is it you? she seems to ask.
Tess can’t do this. She just can’t. She’s had no preparation.
Shit.
Tess moves her finger towards the screen. The ringing is now deafening. She can hardly think. She should go to her. She should go to her daughter, and yet she knows she can’t.
Tess presses ‘decline’ and the ringing is silenced. She puts the car into reverse and locks her gaze on her rear-view mirror so she can avoid eye contact with Steph. She tears out of the car park like a madwoman, almost colliding with an elderly driver, who has to brake hard to avoid hitting her.
Then she guns along the promenade. And she can still hear the ringing. Only now she’s not sure if it’s for real or it’s inside her head. It’s ear-splitting. It seems to cripple her, and she has to pull over.
Tess puts her hands over her ears and waits, she waits for an eternity, until it stops.
Now
LYING ON HER bed, Tess stares at the ceiling. She’s been here since yesterday afternoon and cannot get up. There’s something sitting on her chest. It’s a heavy, malformed thing that won’t let her move. Every time she tries to turn on to her side, every time she tries to lever herself into an upright position, it shifts and she is again pinned to the bed. What is it, this weight, this entity, that won’t let her up? And her dead mother answers, clear as day, as if lying right beside her. ‘Shame,’ her mother says, bluntly.
Tess tries to sleep. When she does doze she is released from the feeling and she can momentarily escape into her dreams. Even the dream of her mother dying is preferable to what she’s experiencing right now. She wants to reach inside herself and rip it right out of her. She wants to fall asleep and never wake up.
Fucking Morecambe. She knew she shouldn’t have gone back. It’s such a small, hopeless town; of course she would meet her past there. What did she think would happen?
Tess had called her baby Angeline – after her mother, Angela. Steph’s parents changed her name when they adopted her. Perhaps she was named after someone they also loved fiercely? Tess hopes so. She squeezes her eyes shut and finds herself thinking about the night of Steph’s conception. She is standing at the kitchen sink, washing up, and her mood is black. Tina is getting ready to go to work and is applying lipstick, teasing and back-combing her curls to attain a fuller look, whilst admiring her reflection in the mirror by the back door. The mirror was hung there by Tess’s mother, who told Tess a woman should always check her appearance before leaving the house because you never knew whom you were going to meet. ‘Cheer up, it might never happen,’ Tina says, pulling on her coat, and Tess gives her a look as if to say, It already did, but Tina is remarkably unperceptive when it comes to Tess’s state of mind and so ignores the look, instead licking the lipstick from her teeth and calling through to Tess’s dad who’s watching TV in the other room: ‘I’ll be back by twelve, Barry! You’d better wait up for me!’
Tina slips out and Tess slams the saucepan down on the drainer, making the cutlery shake. She can see her own reflection in the kitchen window and she scowls back at herself. She hates Tina. But right now, she hates her dad more for bringing Tina into their home.
‘You OK?’ her dad asks. He has appeared in the kitchen without Tess realizing.
‘Hmm,’ she replies.
‘You mad at that pan?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
Tess shakes her hands dry and turns to face him. ‘Is she living here now?’
‘Tina?’ he says and laughs awkwardly. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’ And then: ‘No, she’s not living here.’
‘And yet she’s here every day.’
Her dad starts to busy himself. He lifts the kettle, gives it a small shake and decides there’s not enough water inside. He removes the lid and reaches across towards Tess. As the water cascades in, he asks her, ‘Do you want one?’ and Tess tells him she doesn’t. He goes to the fridge and hums as he rearranges his beer on the lowest shelf before taking out the milk and sniffing the top of the bottle. ‘This is yesterday’s,’ he says. ‘It could do with using. Make yourself some cereal and use it up for supper?’
Tess doesn’t answer.
‘What?’ he says, smiling. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Is she living here or not? I would like to know.’
Her dad puts the milk down. He looks past Tess and his brow is furrowed. ‘Would it be a problem if she did live here?’ he asks eventually, and Tess’s eyes go wide.
‘She’s been dead a month!’ she yells. ‘My mother has been in the ground for a month and you want that woman here?’
‘She cheers me up.’
‘She’s a fucking slut.’
‘Tess—’
‘What? She is. You know she is. Is she the best you could do? It’s pathetic.’ She glares at him, daring him to tell her to shut her mouth. And when he doesn’t, when he looks back at her confused, not really sure what’s happened, the tears pour out of her. ‘You said we’d be OK. You didn’t say anything about moving someone else in the minute she was dead. What is wrong with you?’
She’s crying hard now and her dad sighs long and deep. He gets two cups out of the cupboard and drops a teabag into each. He then pours in the water and, as he’s adding the milk, he says, ‘It’s not enough.’
‘What’s not enough?’
He hesitates. ‘We’re not enough,’ he says quietly. ‘I need a companion. I need something else …’
Tess grabs her coat and flees.
The music is throbbing when she enters the club. The bouncers know her, they know she’s underage, but she had sex with two of them the previous weekend (not at the same time) and so they don’t ID her. Tess is alone. The girl she came out with has found a boy and has deserted her. Tess is angry, she’s been angry since her mother died, and she wants to get drunk. She wants to drink until the clenching pain in her stomach is no longer there. Until the feeling that she can’t bear to be inside her own skin disappears. She wants to drink until she feels desirable. And then she wants to have sex.
She buys a double vodka and lime, pulls down on the straps of the vest she’s wearing so she’s revealing more flesh and makes her way to the edge of the dance floor. She hates dancing. But she does like to watch. The DJ is playing ‘Dirty Cash (Money Talks)’, loud, and the floor is filled with young women. They’re all a little older than Tess and they’re dancing around their handbags, hands in the air, laughing at nothing, falling over each other’s feet and then laughing some more. This is not a cool club. The women are not city women. This is a small-town, one-room club that people go to because there’s nowhere else. The walls are black and the lights are harsh and the toilets are dirty. The men stand around the edge of the dance floor, eyeing what’s on offer, and the women flash their skin and their eyes, they toss their hair and pretend not to notice they’re being checked out. It’s a mating display that is remarkably effective and if Tess is going to have any chance of ridding herself of this falling sensation beneath her ribs, she must join in with the spectacle.
