‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve been very brave about everything.’
He speaks as if I’ve done a lengthy stint in Afghanistan and am finally back in Blighty.
I don’t know what to say, so give him a slim smile and a half-hearted ‘thanks’.
He pats my shoulder and then disappears off to talk to someone else.
Back at the table, the leisure centre manager has disappeared, along with the remnants of the table wine.
Jane hands me my bag and we step to the side as the staff continue to clear the tables to make way for a dance floor.
‘You look tired,’ she says.
‘This isn’t really my thing,’ I reply.
Jane finishes her water and passes the empty glass to one of the staff. I’ve only had a single glass of wine and she’s not had any alcohol at all. We’re a right pair of lightweights. I’m only thirty-three but can sense my teenage-self disapproving.
‘I’ve got to head back,’ Jane says, ‘I don’t like being away from Norah for a night… not a whole one, anyway.’
We’d spoken about this beforehand and brought two cars. I’m staying at the hotel where the awards are taking place, while Jane is driving home.
She starts to fish into her bag: ‘Do you want to see the photos?’
‘How do I look in them?’
‘Fit.’
‘Let’s see then.’
She retrieves her phone from her bag and flicks through the images before passing it across. The device is one of those plus-sized ones that’s closer to a TV that a phone. Give it a few years and mobiles will be the same size as the bricks that used to pass for phones in the 80s. I suppose fashion really is cyclical. I refuse to use the word ‘phablet’. I’d bring back capital punishment for inventing words like that.
The thing about a photograph full of fitness professionals is that we are, by definition, fit. Almost everyone in the picture will have to stay in shape as part of the job. That brings a natural competition. Almost all the women are wearing tight, low-cut tops or dresses, while the men are in custom-cut slimming suits. Everyone is flexing their arms, either subtly or not. At one time, everyone desired the biggest muscles; now it is all about getting lean.
I glance at Jane’s photo and clock myself at the side. I’ve got my back straight, chest puffed up, chin solid, smile fixed. Give it the old tits and teeth. Half of us are turned towards Steven’s camera while the others are looking towards Jane. It’s all quite the mess.
I’m about to hand the phone back when I spot a face at the very back. It doesn’t belong to the group, it’s not one of the winners, it’s simply there. A man with very short hair, facing sideways but staring directly at the camera with piercing brown eyes. My body tenses and I can’t quite take in what I’m seeing. I pinch the screen to zoom until I’m staring at the face of a ghost. He is as he was when I last saw him: wrinkles around the corners of the eyes and a knowing smirk. That’s the expression I see when I can’t sleep.
‘Are you OK?’
I glance up to see Jane frowning in my direction. She has released her hair from its bun and the curly waves have dropped to her shoulders. She seems ready to leave.
‘Yes, um…’ My gaze flicks to the screen once more. ‘Could you send this photo to me?’
‘Sure.’
Jane takes back her phone and swipes around the screen until she says ‘Done’.
The thing is, I recognise the man in the background of the photo. How could I not? It’s just that it can’t be him. It’s not my ex-husband. It’s not David.
I know that better than anyone because he didn’t walk out on me. He didn’t disappear two years ago and he’s not a missing person. I know that for a fact because I’m the one who killed him.
Two
THE WHY
Three years, ten months ago
Jane frowns across to the pair of blokes who are sitting in the windowsill. They’re roughly our age, late-20s or early 30s, and I don’t know them.
‘Don’t light that in here,’ she says.
One of the men looks down to the cigarette he’s rolling and shrugs. ‘I wasn’t going to.’ He licks his lips and then adds a conspiratorial: ‘Want one?’
‘No.’
He grins and tilts his head: ‘You’ve changed since uni.’ He laughs, though Jane doesn’t, and then the duo get up and head off into the garden.
‘Ben’s friends,’ she says by way of explanation.
As they disappear, a blonde woman in yoga pants and a wool sweater ambles into the living room with her boyfriend or husband in tow. She turns in a half-circle, seemingly lost, and then smiles, waves and shrieks, ‘Happy birthday!’
There are few things quite as awkward as being at the side of a conversation while not knowing who the other party is. The woman’s boyfriend/husband is in the same position and we exchange knowing half-smiles.
‘I love the new house,’ she says.
‘We’ve not got much furniture yet,’ Jane replies. ‘We’re getting there.’
‘We’re still renting…’ The woman delivers her retort with an obvious edge of annoyance, but then levers a wrapped present out from under her boyfriend/husband’s arm and hands it over. ‘That’s for you,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe you’re turning thirty. I feel so old.’
‘You feel old? You’re not the one turning thirty.’
Jane opens the gift and it’s a picture frame full of a scrappy piecemeal of photos. Jane looks young in all of them and she’s alongside various people I don’t know.
I presume this is another of Jane’s old university friends. Most of the people at the house party know either her or Jane’s boyfriend, Ben, in the same way.
Jane and her friend make small talk until the woman disappears off towards the kitchen, her boyfriend or husband trailing a step behind like a trained puppy at heel.
Jane runs her fingers across the pictures and then places the frame down at the side of the TV unit.
‘That was Eleanor,’ she says. ‘I should’ve introduced you.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’
I don’t explicitly say that I’m not bothered about Jane’s university friends, though it has to be somewhat implied. I suppose everyone has different lives depending on who they’re with and where they are. It’s only events like birthdays, weddings and funerals that bring it all crashing together.
It’s been a steady parade of guests arriving for Jane’s birthday, but, for now at least, the living room is quiet. We lean on the back of the sofa and stare towards the window at the front. We’ve known each other for so long that, sometimes, it doesn’t need words.
Jane eventually sighs her way into a sentence: ‘So…you have news?’
I glance off to the kitchen, wanting the chat but not wanting to be interrupted or overheard. ‘Gary dumped me,’ I say.
‘I thought you were going to break it off with him anyway?’
‘That makes it worse. I wasn’t into him – but I wanted him to be into me.’
The grin creeps across Jane’s mouth and then disappears. I laugh, anyway. We both get it.
‘Then the gym is closing down,’ I add. ‘I lost a job and a boyfriend all within about thirty hours.’
‘So… that’s two things you didn’t like that are both out of your life. Tomorrow’s a new day and all that…’ She pauses and then adds: ‘Perhaps it’s a chance to look at something else?’
‘Like what?’
‘I can ask around to see if there are any jobs going. Ben’s bank is often after people to start at the bottom…’
‘I don’t want to work in a bank. I—’
She holds up a hand to stop me: ‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…’ Jane tails off and doesn’t finish the sentence properly because we both know she meant it in precisely the way it came out. She works at a design agency that is some sort of mix of public relations and brochure design. I’m not sure anyone really knows what she does, including hersel
f. She’s always been artsy and my choice of teaching exercise classes with the goal of working my way up to being a full-on personal trainer with my own studio is alien to her. We were in the same class for every year throughout school and yet there are times at which we feel like utter strangers.
Jane pushes herself away from the sofa. ‘I’m going to find Ben,’ she says.
‘Sorry for dragging down your birthday.’
She rubs my upper arm like she always does when she wants to be reassuring: ‘You haven’t.’
Jane drifts away, leaving me alone in the living room with only a hum of chatter from the kitchen. Considering she and Ben are apparently still looking for furniture, their house looks largely complete to me. The living room is full of the usual things and there are no obvious gaps. She was probably talking about the little touches she considers important to finishing a room. The candles, the abstract prints, the books she’ll never read. That’s one of the differences between us, I suppose.
I head into the kitchen to get myself a drink. There are beers and wine floating around but I settle for water from the fridge.
It’s all right for couples who turn up to parties and can spend the evening chatting to one another. For singles, it is a slow, bubbling panic of trying to latch onto literally anyone who is vaguely familiar. Failing that, it’s anyone who seems remotely normal.
I recognise a couple of faces of people who live around the general area, but they’re all friends of friends. People I might nod or wave to, rather than anyone with whom I’m pals. They’d still offer an escape, though each of them seems to be chatting and drinking with other people. I’ve never been one of those who can sidle up and join a conversation. It’s only as I find myself back in the living room, having done a lap of the house, that I realise what should have been obvious.
My only real friend is Jane.
It’s all a bit pathetic. I’m turning thirty in three months and have no job, no boyfriend and no proper friends. They’ve either drifted away, or gone off to get married and have kids. That’s the problem with remaining in the area in which a person grew up. The competition over who’s making the best of their lives is endless. Everyone started in the same place, so it’s hard to blame anyone else other than ourselves for failure.
I’m on another lap, heading through the hallway, when the doorbell sounds. I’m not sure if Jane or Ben will have heard so open the door and am faced with a middle-aged man in a cardigan. He smiles awkwardly.
‘Could you, uh, turn the music down a bit?’
I blink at him, largely because I’d somehow blanked out the fact there was music playing. It’s only now he mentions it that I realise there’s an Oasis song playing in the background. I am about to say that I’ll find someone who lives here when there’s a presence at my side. I glance sideways to see Ben. He’s in jeans and a loose-fitting shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
‘Sorry about all this,’ he says, reaching for the man’s hand.
The neighbour seems to have little choice in the matter and ends up shaking.
‘I’m Ben. We’ve just moved in. It’s my girlfriend’s thirtieth so we were having a bit of a joint housewarming and birthday party.’
‘Oh, well that’s—’
‘Are you from next-door? We would have invited you over but everything’s happened really quickly. If you hang on a moment…’
Ben releases the other man’s hand and turns quickly, disappearing along the hall towards the kitchen. Moments later, the music dims and then Ben reappears with a six-pack of Guinness in his hand.
He offers the cans to the neighbour, almost forcing them into his hand: ‘Here you are, mate. Sorry about everything. What’s your name, by the way?’
Ben has spoken so quickly that the man takes a second or two to take it all in. He accepts the cans and straightens his cardigan.
‘Oh, this wasn’t necessary. It’s Cliff. My wife’s Alice. She’s very sensitive to loud noise, you see.’ He taps his ears as if to indicate the issue and Ben tilts his head.
‘Oh, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. If there’s ever anything we can do, just let us know.’
Cliff bobs awkwardly. I suspect he was fired up, ready for an argument and now, from nowhere, he’s got a new buddy. He holds the cans up, says thanks again, and then turns and heads off back to his house.
Ben watches him leave and then closes the door, before turning to me and shrugging.
‘Seems like a nice bloke,’ he says.
I can’t tell if he’s being genuine, or if there’s an edge there. That’s Ben all over, though. He and Jane met at university and have been together for a decade since. He travelled from the other end of the country to come down to Kingbridge, while Jane picked the university that was a little over half an hour away from where we grew up in Gradingham. That perhaps explains the difference between them.
Ben looks to me and his eyes are like buttons: big and round and blue. It feels as if I’m frozen. He’s always been able to do this to me, but it’s not the kind of thing I could ever say out loud. I don’t even think it’s a physical thing; it’s more the way he is. There’s something effortless about him. As if life itself comes so naturally that he doesn’t need to try.
‘How’s it going, Morgs?’
‘It’s been worse.’
‘It was about time you got rid of that Gary.’
‘It wasn’t quite like that, but yes…’
‘Keep your chin up,’ he says. ‘Everything will come together.’
If anyone else had said it, the words might have sounded cheesy – but there’s something about Ben’s phrasing that means I don’t question it. Perhaps things really will come together.
He grins and possibly winks. It’s hard to know because it’s there and gone. ‘I’ve got to go find the birthday girl,’ he says. ‘We’ll catch up later.’
With that, he disappears up the stairs, leaving me alone in the hall. I watch him go and then move to the bottom step, sitting by myself and taking out my phone to make it seem like I’m doing something other than wallowing.
Minutes pass and then there is a clatter of footsteps and suddenly someone is sitting next to me.
‘Parties not your thing, either?’ the newcomer says.
I turn and it’s an older man I don’t know. I’ve never been great at judging ages but he’s got that silver-fox thing going on, with short, pepper-pot hair. He’s maybe a decade older than me and there’s something about his shrugged indifference that is immediately appealing.
‘Is it anyone’s?’ I reply.
‘In my experience, the moment anyone invites you to a party, you start thinking of ways to possibly get out of it.’
I laugh and shuffle sideways on the step so that I can lean on the wall and get a better look at him.
‘How do you know Jane?’ I ask.
‘I don’t really. I’m an old friend of Ben’s from university. We were in the football team. A few of us came together for a bit of a reunion.’
As if to emphasise the point, he raises his can of Boddington’s to someone who passes us on the way up the stairs.
‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘How do you know Jane?’
‘From school. I think we were six or seven when we first met.’
He pouts a lip and nods. ‘I think you win,’ he says, offering his hand. ‘David,’ he adds.
‘Morgan.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
Three
THE NOW
Here’s the thing with being a killer: for the most part, it doesn’t change a person from appearing ‘normal’. Murderers still have unexpected items in the bagging area and get stuck in traffic jams. We’re still against racism and sexism. We support gay marriage and love Attenborough documentaries. We’re not monsters. We go to work and lose hours looking at videos of dogs on the Internet when we’re supposed to be doing other things. Taking the life of another human doesn’t stop the world from turning. Day becomes night becomes day.
Everyone else has spent two years thinking David disappeared. What I did to him only changed me in the sense that I know murder is something of which I’m capable. Serial killers can be glorified, but I’ve never had the urge to repeat the act. I suspect most people who’ve killed are like me. We live in plain sight. We’re neighbours and friends; colleagues and relatives – it’s just that our secrets run somewhat deeper than most.
My phone buzzes as the photo arrives from Jane. I pinch the screen and zoom to take in the features of my dead husband.
Is it him?
It looks like him – but the photo is pixelated on my screen. I pinch in and out but can’t be certain. David didn’t have any distinguishing features like tattoos, deformed ears, or a big nose. The man in the picture has the same greying hair and rigidly straight back as my David.
He’s only visible from the chest up, but it looks like he’s wearing a navy-blue suit. David did used to own one, though most of his clothes ended up at the charity shop.
I look up from the phone, scanning the room for anyone in a blue suit.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Fine,’ I answer, too quickly. I assume she never noticed the figure at the back of her photo. Why would she? She’d have no need to be scanning the other people in the picture.
‘I’ve got to get going,’ Jane says, dangling her car keys from her ring finger. ‘Congratulations on the win. I’m so pleased for you.’ She leans in and kisses me on the cheek and then hoists her bag higher on her shoulder. ‘We’ll catch up soon,’ she adds.
Having been ready for sleep, it now feels like I’ve downed a quadruple espresso. My head is buzzing and it’s as if I can suddenly see more clearly. People are starting to drift away from the main room; heading to bed, or out to their cars to drive home. Others are crowding around the bar, while the DJ at the back is busy talking over the music. A few of the more inebriated are already on the dance floor, flapping around like epileptic farm animals.
I do a lap of the room, looking for anyone in a blue suit. There are a couple of men – but none who look like my former husband. David didn’t have any brothers or cousins that I know of. I stop to look at the image once more, but it’s hard to know either way. Jane’s phone has a bigger screen than mine.
Close to You (ARC) Page 2
