Try Not to Breathe: A Novel

by Holly Seddon

  No, it was not a nice place to die.

  As she reached the spot—a dark little enclave surrounded by thorny bushes and guarded over by thick chestnut trees—the wind blew Alex’s skinny legs clean from under her and she landed awkwardly in the mud, unnerved and cold. She scrabbled to her feet.

  There was nothing and no one for miles around. Somewhere in the distance the hum of an A-road barely scratched the silence. An off-season wasp buzzed halfheartedly while it waited to die. The only person here today had arrived alone and would leave alone, no one else was likely to turn up. Not while there was a river to walk along in town and pretty parks tended by committees. This big block of nothingness, “saved” from development through a quirky greenbelt bylaw, was cared for by the council at arm’s length, like a step-child.

  Alex took pictures, which all looked the same. Ten or so identical pictures of a dark, spiky place. No plaque, no flowers, nothing to suggest it had been anything special to anyone.

  Why here? Why not here? It was deadly quiet, someone was unlikely to be seen assaulting someone, or dragging a body. There was a main road nearby, but not so close that anyone could see a car—maybe Paul’s borrowed car—in the car park, a generous name for a gravel patch with way more space for vehicles than needed. And not enough spaces when it mattered. Volunteers’ cars and police vans would have snaked along the hedge all the way back to the main road.

  Alex stared at the horizon, the distant cough of cars still the only sound.

  Where had they been when they first had sex? Amy and her “older fella.” Was it here? Had it built up for days, weeks, longer? Had their first time been that last time, or was it just one encounter in many?

  If it was Paul, it all made a screwed-up kind of sense. Of course Amy didn’t tell anyone that she was seeing her birth father, if they had a secret that ran so deeply in the wrong direction nobody could hear it. Of course he hadn’t admitted to meeting her, finding himself drawn to her in a way he would never have anticipated—no one would.

  Where had she been when she was beaten until blood splattered from her seams? Her father’s borrowed car? Had she changed her mind about their clandestine meetings? Perhaps she’d tried to end it and he was so enraged he just attacked without thinking. A crime of passion. Alex hated that phrase.

  Had Paul brought his daughter here for secrecy as he explored a body he should never have seen like that, before laying that body on the ground as if at random? Or was there some sense of occasion as Amy lay in the grass and felt his hands on her throat and the tug of black sleep nipping at her toes? Did she stare into his eyes? His eyes that are just like her eyes?

  Alex pictured Amy fetal on a gurney. Dewy grass under her nails and in her hair. Without thinking, Alex lay down on the wet grass and closed her eyes. The smell of damp autumnal soil was wrong, of course. Amy would have felt the warmth of the summer soil and smelt the stink of the nearby lake, humming with midges and thick with slime. Amy lay right here, on this spot that could be any spot, and thought her last conscious thoughts.

  Paul was a sneaky, snaky liar, but he was also a bit of a buffoon. Was he really capable of this?

  Alex shivered and rose carefully. She rushed back toward the car and tried to ignore her thirst, and the thought of the measuring jug and bottle on the kitchen counter.

  It was time to talk to Matt again. She was a little dizzy at the thought of presenting him with a new idea. No perfectly wrapped-up case, but something fresh at least. Not criminal evidence, but evidence of her own abilities. Her ability to stay sharp and focused, to work into the afternoon. To accomplish something tangible. To accomplish anything at all.

  Jacob’s job at GRX Solutions was the only one he’d ever had. He’d come straight out of university with no plan besides avoiding being a computer programmer. Regrettably, he’d taken a degree in computer programming, which limited his options. Selling software seemed as good as anything.

  As Jacob called his boss, Geoff, to arrange dragging his slightly improved leg back to work, he realized he’d worked in the same office for nearly ten years. At the same desk. Besides Geoff, who owned the company, and Linda, who manned the reception desk, Jacob was the longest-standing employee.

  “Hello, stranger,” Geoff answered.

  “Hey, Geoff, how’s it all going over there? Falling apart without me?”

  “It’s heavenly, mate, heavenly. No one’s eating all the biscuits and morale’s through the roof.”

  “You’ll be gutted to hear I’m coming back in a few days, then.”

  “God, d’ya have to come back?”

  The only one-to-one Jacob had ever had was about three years into the job. One of the long-gone account girls had complained about the lack of career progression, so Geoff had made a big show of having one-to-ones with everyone.

  “It’s a load of balls, if you ask me,” he’d confided in Jacob. “We all know what we’re doing, and if you’re not doing a good job, you’re out. But apparently Susan needs cuddles, so here we go.”

  Geoff had attempted to make notes about each employee. Under Jacob’s name was just one word: “solid.” At the time, Jacob took it as a compliment. The clients liked him, he wasn’t pushy with them and he didn’t overpromise. In this industry, that was enough to elicit loyalty. He had staying power, that was certainly true. Solid. Dependable. Loyal. He’d thought they were good traits.

  Graham Arlington had worked for the same company for decades. It wasn’t that Jacob had deliberately aped his father, but it had seemed to work out well enough for the older man. For every year that Jacob could remember, his father had set out at the same time each day, caught the same train, read his books or the paper and worked with a stream of pretty secretaries. He only knew the last nugget from the occasional snatched sniping of his mother, bubbling through the floorboards when he still lived at home.

  If pressed, Jacob would have struggled to describe his father’s job. It seemed to belong in a past version of London. Not the fast, smart, dirty city of today. More like the bowler hats and red buses of the fifties and sixties, an era that pre-dated his father.

  Until his retirement, Graham had worked for a livery company, an antiquated, excruciatingly British institution that would never have existed anywhere else. All Jacob knew, from what little his father had explained to him, was that livery companies are London’s ancient trade associations, a sort of Olde Worlde guild of workers. Now they mostly seemed to dole out cash from their considerable monies for charitable work. The other thing Jacob knew was that his father had managed to avoid having a computer for his whole working life, and that he earned a very decent wage. With no real desire to do anything in particular, this last achievement seemed to be a sensible one to try to emulate.

  In that respect, Jacob was the only son to follow in his father’s footsteps. To push slightly into the next income tax bracket. He wondered, when he let himself, if this pleased or disappointed his father.

  In many ways it was a surprise that Simon hadn’t followed his father, given they were so similar. Not that Simon was particularly money mad, but he was women mad. Always with a “honey” or a “sweetheart” or an “angel” on the go—or all three at once. The bevy of secretaries his mother had painted and the kudos of a good City job must have appealed, but he’d rejected that. How many women were there to choose from in the middle of the humanitarian crises Simon picked through?

  Both Jacob’s brothers were “helpers” rather than earners, putting the greater good above their own pay packet. In fact, even his father for all his pin-striped-suitedness had technically been a helper, dishing out other people’s money to a specific sliver of the needy. In contrast, Jacob’s form of help was laser precise. His charitable acts began and ended with Amy, and that was hardly pure and altruistic.

  Jacob’s leg was still painful and his head was still foggy from painkillers but he’d be able to get by without crutches soon. The routine of work would be good for him, he decided. It would stop him thi
nking, churning things over so bloody much. Mostly though, it would get him away from Edenbridge for part of the day, and—maybe—away from his most punishing memories.

  Sue sat still on her dusky sofa, knees to the side. “Sidesaddle,” the way she’d been shown to ride a pony as a child. The quiet ticktock of the carriage clock gave the lounge a heartbeat. The sun danced from the reflection of the clock’s gold case and the silver photo frames that surrounded it.

  Where had those little boys in the photo frames gone? Their shaggy hair and nylon jackets, always slightly too big for them.

  Jacob’s first school photo beamed out at her from the corner of the mantel, a gappy smile and his hair flying a little at the sides. How she had raged at him for the shirt collar that was tucked awkwardly into his jumper. A quirk of the photo that she loved to death now. She could barely bring herself to look at his happy little face. His brown eyes bright and clear. So rarely he’d cried back then. And when he did, when he fell and scraped his knee or landed awkwardly from his bike, what sweet luck to be able to rush in and hug him until he was better.

  He’d had a big scab on his knee when that photo was taken. Five years old, tumbling down the garden like a sausage roll, clattering into Tom’s tricycle and crashing onto the stone path. All these years later, Sue could still smell the iron blood in the air. Could picture herself wincing on his behalf as she gently cleaned the gritty graze.

  Her favorite picture over the fireplace was of the five of them. Standing on a sand dune, the wind blowing them sideways, smiles carved into the boys’ cheeks. Graham was standing so tall and handsome, frowning into the lens as he always did, unconvinced that the self-timer would work. And Sue herself looked so young, so strong. Where had the years gone?

  Her eldest son was so unbearably handsome, it was almost captured in the pictures but real life always won. His eyes sparkled like emeralds in a storm cloud. Her two youngest boys had always reminded her of Labrador puppies. One chocolate, one golden. Tom would chase after Jake with boundless energy, desperate to catch him, join in with him, wrestle his ball from him. Just like puppies.

  The little two needed wrangling, herding in a way that Simon did not—or would not—allow. He responded more to Graham’s silent form of “handling.” A look from his father, that was enough. He always knew what it meant, like a private code. She’d noticed that Simon would give the same look to Tom, the same sign language. But it was only many years later that Tom stepped into Simon’s brooding shoes.

  The windy picture had been taken on the penultimate day of the last family holiday to Sandy Bay. The last time they caravanned and the last holiday that was in Devon rather than abroad. Until then, they’d just caravanned at Sandy Bay because they had always caravanned at Sandy Bay. The gold sand as warm and familiar as her own doormat.

  They’d always wanted to try Portugal, though, and from the following summer, holidays were spent in the Algarve surrounded by other Brits.

  But even now, Sue remembered the exact layout of the Sandy Bay caravan. A big five-berth beast with a full dining table and chairs, a floral wraparound sofa and three distinct bedrooms. You didn’t find them like that anymore, it was a gem.

  The two youngest boys would bunk together in the middle room, wrestling until way past bedtime. Simon would lie alone on his bed, thumbing through music magazines or whatever they were.

  As much as he played the brooding teenager, wanting nothing to do with his baby brothers, it wasn’t quite true. On one of the last mornings, Sue had woken later than usual, allowing herself the luxury of a little peace. Eventually, she’d padded out of the bedroom and followed the sound of Simon’s lowered voice. She’d found him sitting on his bed, reading his magazine aloud to the two young ones. Jacob and Tom had been sitting cross-legged on the carpet-tiles, utterly enthralled by the words coming out of Simon’s mouth.

  Sue didn’t even remember what he had in his hands, probably his Melody Maker or something. As soon as Simon saw her shadow in the doorway, he’d stopped abruptly and told the little boys to get out.

  She used to call them “the little ducklings,” the youngest two trailing behind Simon, with their little sticky-out tummies and wide eyes. They would have done anything he told them, and often did. The scribbling on the wall as toddlers, the little routines intended to charm girls, the swear words learned by rote for Simon’s amusement. It was just nice that they all got along.

  Sue remembered their final night with a smile. One of the last times she and Graham had made love spontaneously, wordlessly. That hazy, happy holiday feeling. The boys at the holiday park disco. After days of acclimatizing, and just hours before they had to pack up, Graham had finally seemed to unwind.

  They had drunk crisp gin and tonics, silently watching the sun hanging over the sea. A wedge of grass, little beige caravans and colorful washing lines had been all that lay between them and that deep blue water.

  I didn’t like it earlier. This loud voice came through a speaker or something and told me he was a doctor and that I needed to imagine I was playing tennis. Like that’s a perfectly normal, everyday thing. To be told to play tennis in your head by some random doctor. But I couldn’t see any reason not to, so I just did as I was told.

  I’ve only played tennis once or twice in my life. The doctor didn’t ask and I didn’t say anything but if he’d have told me to play netball, it would have been a lot better. But whatever, I dutifully imagined myself playing tennis. In my head, I threw the hard fuzzy ball up in the air and swung my racquet so the ball smashed down hard over the net. Over and over again, slicing it through the air and firing it away whenever it came close. And I heard the doctor’s voice and it had laughter in it. He said things like, “That’s really good, Amy, that’s wonderful,” and, “You must be winning.”

  He also said weird stuff about how the tennis bit of my brain was lighting up. Since when does anyone have a bit of brain just for playing tennis? And I thought, Are you laughing at me? What are you really testing? My honesty or something like that? Does he know about the Stone Temple Pilots tape I stole from Woolworths that time? I didn’t even like the Stone Temple Pilots, I just went along with what Jenny and this lad were doing. I’ve been quite scared about that ever since.

  He told me to relax then, but I thought, No, I need to put this right. So I imagined myself back on the tennis court and I decided to do it properly, realistically. That time, in my more accurate imagination, the sun was in my eyes and I dropped one ball after another. When my wooden racquet finally connected, I just scooped the ball softly into the net. I watched it flop down into the folds of the material and I could feel my palms and forehead prickling with sweat. After I dropped about seven more balls, I looked up. I think I’d thought I was playing Jake or Becky but when I realized who it actually was, I was mortified.

  Without warning, he threw the ball in the air, far up over his head, leapt into the clouds and sent it shrieking over the net. I just stood rooted to the spot in my own imagination, watching the spinning yellow shape as it landed between my eyes and sent me flying back so hard that I landed on my bum.

  I scrambled up and looked at him, hoping for a friendly smile but his eyes were black. He stayed where he was, looking at me like he’d tasted something bad. I hated how that look made me feel. And I think I must have cried out or something because it got light outside of my eyes and I could hear the doctor’s voice in my ear rather than through a speaker. He was saying things like, “That’s enough, that’s enough, just relax, Amy, it’s okay.” And I suddenly thought Hang on, why is this doctor doing tests on me, does my mum know about this? And I think they must have given me something because I didn’t care after that. And I didn’t care right up until just now.

  “I don’t know, Alex, I think your first hunch was right—Wheeler’s just an untrustworthy little worm, not much more. And even if he did have an unhealthy interest in underage girls like Amy, it wouldn’t be on his record or he wouldn’t have kept his other children.”


  “I know, Matt, it doesn’t sit right with me either but I want to look under every stone.” Alex ignored the sting she felt at Matt’s dismissiveness, like she wasn’t seeing a full picture that came easily to him.

  “Well, I hope that’s true and you’re not getting your hopes up about this.”

  Alex bit her lip and murmured. She couldn’t allow herself to snap or argue, to damage the fragile truce they were working within. She needed Matt to be on her side as a police source. She needed Matt.

  “Don’t worry, I’m still looking at other angles, I’m talking to Amy’s friends and looking into her school life. I want to do this thoroughly.”

  “I know you do. I know you’ll do a good job.”

  For a moment, Alex couldn’t say anything, she just smiled widely, eyes dancing. It was a long time since anyone had told her she was doing a good job, let alone the person whose opinion mattered the most.

  She took a deep breath and shook her head, trying to ignore her racing heart.

  “Thanks, Matt,” she said as professionally as possible. “Let me know what you find, yeah?”

  “I’ll let you know what I can,” Matt cautioned.

  Alex said goodbye and looked at the time on her phone’s display. As if she didn’t already know it. Her thirst knew it. Five hours, forty-two minutes to go until she could crack that screw cap. She’d almost done it instinctively before calling Matt, her hands leading her into the kitchen and toward the bottle as her heart had beat faster.

  But she’d done it again. She’d spoken to Matt completely sober. She’d spoken clearly, keeping emotion out of it. It was fucking exhausting, but she’d managed it. With every conversation she was calmer, more like a normal person. God, she hoped that was how it came across.