by Alex Marwood
She hears a key in the door and slips the junk mail into her Budgens bag, along with the potatoes and the eggs and the bit of bacon she’s bought as a treat. Smiles as Cher lets herself in, pretty and normal today, no wigs, no fake glasses, just an orange cotton dress above the knee and a pair of gold plastic flip-flops, white earphones in her ears, a Pucci-patterned headscarf tied round the base of her Afro making her look older, more sophisticated, like a model on the front of an album from the 1970s. ‘Hello, love!’
‘Hiya.’ Cher pulls out a single earphone and she hears a tinny scritch of music. She looks down at the little gadget in her hand – all smooth and shiny with a circular thing at the top – frowning as though she’s unsure how it works, then presses and holds a button on the side. Takes out the other ’phone and wraps the wire round the machine. ‘You been out?’
‘Just for a bit. Went up the High Street for a few bits and bobs. What’ve you been doing with yourself?’
‘Went and had a sit on the Common,’ says Cher. ‘Did a bit of scrumping. Loads of people up there.’
‘Scrumping? I never noticed any apple trees on the common.’
‘They don’t always grow on trees,’ says Cher, mysteriously, and tucks the iPod into her pocket. ‘How’ve you been? How’re your drains? He been and done anything about them yet?’
‘Good grief,’ she says. ‘Don’t remind me. I was in a good mood a minute ago. If he has, he hasn’t told me. You in the mood for a cuppa?’
‘I’d kill for something cold. You seen my cat anywhere?’
‘I’m sure he’s about. He’ll be asleep on your bed at this time of day, I should think. I’ve got bitter lemon in the fridge. I made it yesterday.’
Cher looks incredulous. ‘You made bitter lemon? I thought it was one of those things they made in factories. Like Pepsi.’
‘Oh, good grief, you young people! You don’t know anything, do you?’
‘No,’ says Cher, complacently. ‘We’re young, innit?’
She strides past Vesta, all legs and ankle bracelets. ‘D’you want a hand with that?’
‘No, love, I’m fine, it’s not heavy. You go ahead and put the kettle on.’
‘’kay,’ says Cher, and pulls the door open. Puts her foot on the top step, shouts in surprise and falls forwards into the dark. Vesta hears an ‘oof’ and the sound of tumbling. She runs to the doorway, grabs the frame and peers into the gloom. ‘Cher? Cher! Are you all right? What happened? Cher?’
She feels above the door for the light switch, clicks it on and puts her head into the stairwell. Cher is halfway down the stairs, hanging on to the banister at the point where it begins, one leg buckled beneath her, the other straight out down the steps, her flip-flop dangling from her big toe. ‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘That was close.’
‘Are you okay?’ Vesta suddenly feels nervous and tottery and old. She puts her bag down and works her way towards her with a hand on each wall.
Cher sits up, unfurls her leg and rubs her upper arm. ‘Ow.’
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. I – there was something on the top step. I trod on it and it went right out from under me.’
Vesta reaches her and sits down beside her. ‘What on earth…? I didn’t leave anything on the stairs.’
Cher groans and gingerly tries her legs. Emits an inward hiss of breath as her right foot hits the carpet. I don’t want to wish anyone ill, thinks Vesta, but thank God it was her, not me. That would have been a broken hip and an ambulance, if it were me.
‘Are you okay? Anything broken?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I’ve fucked my ankle, but I don’t think it’s anything worse than that.’
‘Language, Cher,’ Vesta corrects automatically. She pulls herself up by the banister and follows the girl as she hops down to the hall.
Cher leans against the wall and switches on the light with her shoulder blade. Rubs at the carpet burn on her thigh. ‘So what the hell was it?’
Vesta looks up the oatmeal stair carpet. On the top step, there’s a nasty, wet-looking stain; black and brackish. ‘I don’t…’ Her eyes trace back down the stairs, look down at the floor beneath their feet. ‘Oh, God!’
There’s a rat resting up against her shoe. A rat the size of a Pomeranian, yellow incisors hanging from its open mouth, dark fur matted and oily, bald pink tail winding round and knotting itself in the pink viscera that hang from a bulging, flattened torso.
Cher follows her gaze, stiffens against the wall, pushing back against it as though she hopes it will open up and let her through. ‘Oh. Oh, God, oh no, oh…’
‘Well, I’ll be blowed. Where on earth did that come from?’ Vesta is simultaneously fascinated and repelled. The rat smells like her drains; old and foetid and long, long dead. Its eyes are milky-white. As she watches, a bluebottle crawls from the half-open mouth and bumbles away up the corridor towards the kitchen. ‘It looks like it’s been dead a while. It can’t have been lying there all this time. I would have noticed.’
‘I don’t care,’ moans Cher. ‘It stinks. It’s that bloody cat. He’s fetched it in. I knew I shouldn’t have adopted him.’
‘Psycho? No, it can’t be Psycho. That’s carrion, that is. He’s not a hyena. I don’t understand. How did it come to be here?’
Absently, Cher lifts up her sprained foot and looks at its underside. Claps a hand over her mouth and stares at Vesta, wide-eyed. Her sole is coated with blood and slime. The contents of the creature’s guts have smeared themselves up her leg as she fell, green and black and…
When she moves her hand, her words come out in a rush, strangled and small. ‘Oh, God, I’m gonna be sick.’
Vesta feels the skin on her neck crawl. ‘No! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Come on. Let’s get you to the bathroom.’
She grabs the girl by the arm and manhandles her up the passageway. Cher is gagging as she hops and her cheeks are filling. ‘Don’t you dare, Cher. Don’t you dare! If you throw up on my carpet, so help me, I’ll… I’ll…’
As they pass through the kitchen, she notices, to her surprise, that the outside door is open. She’s sure she remembers putting the bolt on before she went to the shops, but right now all she can think of is the hurricane that’s about to hit. She drags Cher into the bathroom, her own hand clamped over the one the girl has over her mouth, throws her down like a sack of potatoes over the toilet and feels a cold sweat of nausea break out on her own forehead as Cher’s lunch – a hamburger and fries by the look and smell – explodes into the pan. Oh, God, she thinks, there’s a rotten sewer rat squashed flat into my carpet. It looked like it had been run over by a truck and it’s in my carpet. I’m going to have to scrape it up.
Cher makes a noise like a wildebeest trapped in a crocodile swamp as Vesta rushes to the sink and adds the fug of cheesy croissant and milky coffee to the odours in the air. Heaves again at the sight of the solids caught in the drain cover. Runs the taps and splashes her face, then collapses on the floor, leaning against the bath.
‘Oh, God,’ Cher mutters. She wipes her face with a forearm, flushes the chain and crawls back to join Vesta. ‘Fuck,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says her friend, and lets the word that would have had her beaten within an inch of her life when she was Cher’s age slide pleasurably from her tongue. ‘Fuck.’
‘It’s all over my leg,’ says Cher.
‘I know. We’ll wash it off with the shower hose.’
‘That rat was rank.’
‘That’s what I love about you,’ says Vesta, ‘you’re so observant.’ And they begin to laugh.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Carry your bag, miss?’
She swims out of her fugue and sees Hossein standing in front of her. She’s not seen him coming, not noticed anything, really, about the street around her. For all she knows, she’s passed Tony, pulling faces, and is none the wiser. Visiting Janine wears her out. When she comes home after her daily hour, she’s so drained that even the walk
home from the station is enough to make her long for a nap.
She blinks and forces a smile on to her face. ‘No, don’t worry, it’s not heavy. I’m fine, thanks.’
Hossein tuts. ‘You Englishwomen are so independent it hurts. Come on. Letting me carry a bag for you doesn’t mean I’ll take away your right to vote.’
He holds out a hand and smiles, and suddenly she’s relieved to hand the weight over. She finally stopped into Asda on the way to Sunnyvale and bought some bedclothes, and she’s surprised how heavy they seem. The bag is a big woman’s shopper in pink leatherette, but he swings it unselfconsciously over his shoulder and grins as he sets off towards Beulah Grove. She falls into step beside him.
‘So how are you getting along?’ he asks. ‘You’ve been to visit your mother?’
She nods.
‘And how is she?’
Collette sighs. ‘Fairly much the same.’
‘Does she remember you yet?’
‘No. Most of the time, she doesn’t even remember I came yesterday. She doesn’t mind the chocolates, though. She eats a box a day, but she never seems to put on any weight.’
‘It’s hard,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ she says, and they carry on in silence to the High Street. I need to find a change of subject, she thinks. We can’t just walk all the way home without saying anything. It’s embarrassing.
As they turn the corner, she says: ‘So you’re Iranian, then?’
‘Yep,’ says Hossein.
‘That’s Persia, right?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘Lovely,’ he says. ‘It’s a lovely country. It’s not Syria, you know.’
‘So why did you leave?’
‘Because it’s ruled by arseholes,’ he says, ‘and I kept saying it out loud.’
‘You’re a politician?’ She’s surprised by the distaste she hears in her own voice. She’s never met a politician before. Hadn’t ever thought she would want to.
‘I taught economics. And I did some journalism, wrote a blog. These things don’t go so well with the powers that be when your students start joining in.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. Did you… were you…?’
‘It’s what happens,’ says Hossein. ‘I wasn’t exactly the only one. Anyway, I’m here now. And soon –’ he hams up his accent and curls his spare arm so that a lean, hard muscle pops ‘– I weel be beeg, beeg Englishman, inshallah. So it’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’
Collette looks around her as if she’s seeing it for the first time. The heat has been heavy for the past few days, but a breeze, she notices, has got up and the air is surprisingly pleasant. ‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it?’
They reach the corner of Bracken Gardens and turn down it. ‘It’s swimming pool weather,’ says Hossein. ‘Have you ever been to the Serpentine?’
‘What? The river?’
‘The Lido.’ He pronounces it Lee-do, like an Italian, not Lie-doh, the way she’s used to, and it takes her a moment. ‘I was thinking maybe I’d go tomorrow. In the afternoon.’
‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘I can’t think of anything worse. Right in the middle of the city. All that duck shit.’
‘I bet you swim in the sea.’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘You know they have fish and seagulls in the sea, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, that’s… oh, whatever.’
‘So I’m going to go,’ he says. ‘It’s fun; old ladies with no tops on on one side of the river and old ladies in burqas on the other. An ice cream and some clear water to swim in. What could be nicer?’
‘Not dying of salmonella poisoning?’
‘You just don’t want to get your hair wet,’ he teases.
‘Well, fair enough, Hossein. I look like a dandelion without the proper product.’
‘Dandelion?’
‘Never mind. It’s a sort of flower.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘No, it – oh, never mind.’
‘So are you going to come? We could take Cher, maybe.’
‘Do you think Cher can swim?’
‘She can swim like a porpoise, as long as she takes her shoes off.’
She’s embarrassed, faintly uneasy. Is he asking her on a date or just being friendly? ‘I’ll have to see,’ she hedges. ‘Depends when I get back tomorrow.’
Hossein sighs and gives her the big brown eyes. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I know what that means.’
‘Oh, no, I —’
He laughs. ‘You’re very easy to embarrass,’ he says.
‘Piss off,’ she replies.
‘Ah, now I know you like me,’ says Hossein. ‘English people only tell their friends to piss off. It’s a cultural rule.’
He stops on the corner of Beulah Grove and takes the bag off his shoulder. Holds it out to her. ‘Okay,’ he says, and there’s a sweet twinkle in his eyes. ‘Have a nice day.’
‘Aren’t you coming home?’
‘Oh, no. I was going to the station.’
She gawps. ‘You…?’
‘Oh, hush,’ says Hossein, and lopes off up Bracken Gardens.
She stands on the corner and watches him go, feels odd emotions course through her. Confusion, pleasure. And then fear. She’s had three years of avoiding involvements. I mustn’t, she thinks. He turns on the far corner and gives her a wave, and she’s waved back before she’s thought about it. He’s lovely, she thinks as she crosses the road and climbs the steps of number twenty-three, but I mustn’t. I can’t afford friends, and I can’t afford lovers. Not when I might have to go at a minute’s notice. It’s bad enough when you’re alone, but if there are people to leave…
Her phone rings in her bag. She gets it out and looks at it, surprised. She’s only given the new number to the care home. No one else knows it. No one. It’s a withheld number. It must be Sunnyvale. She picks up as she comes in to the hall.
It’s a woman. ‘Lisa?’
She almost says yes, but something stops her. The fact that she’s called her by her first name – and not just her first name, but her nickname. She’s always been an Elizabeth in all her dealings with Sunnyvale, and they’re quite scrupulous about calling her Ms Dunne; some gesture of respect to the bill-payer. ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘you’ve got the wrong number.’
She’s about to hang up when the woman says: ‘Lisa, it’s Merri here. Merri Cheyne. Please don’t hang up.’
Collette’s heart jolts. She thinks about doing it anyway, for a second. Then thinks: she’ll just call again. She’s found me already and she knows it’s me. I’m not going to put her off by not talking to her. ‘Detective Inspector Cheyne,’ she says. ‘How did you get this number?’
She uses the rank with a faint note of insult attached, to emphasise the distance, walks up the corridor, clutching the phone so hard that the tips of her fingers go white.
She hears that her tone has hit home, for the voice that replies is changed, more formal, less pally. ‘We’re better at this stuff than you seem to think, Lisa. We’ve known you were back in the country since you caught the Santander ferry. Computers don’t just go to plugs in the wall, these days.’
She unlocks the mortise on the door to her room, turns the Yale, throws the door wide and checks the interior before she enters, as she always does. It’s stuffy and hot and smells of the washing-up she didn’t bother to do last night, but it’s empty. She steps inside, closes and locks the door, shoots the bolt and throws open the window.
‘So what do you want?’
She doesn’t really know why she’s bothered to ask, because she already knows the answer. The calls from DI Cheyne began just weeks after she ran from the club.
‘Same as I ever wanted, Lisa. You know that. I just wanted to reiterate our offer.’
‘No, thanks,’ she says.
‘Think about it, Lisa,’ says Merri. ‘It’s really your best choice.’
‘It really isn’t,’ she says bitterly. ‘Thanks al
l the same.’
‘Well, you may think that…’
‘I know that,’ she snaps.
A sigh. ‘Okay. Well, look, just so you know, the offer’s still open. We still want you as a witness. We’ll still protect you and you can sort this whole thing out, now. Tell us where you are, and I can come and pick you up and put you somewhere safe in the time it takes you to pack. Get Tony Stott behind bars and your problems are over.’
They don’t know where she is. That’s one hit in her favour. ‘You know that’s not true,’ she says. ‘They’ll never be over. Tony doesn’t exist in a vacuum. They’ll always be after me.’
Merri laughs, and the laugh has a nasty edge. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Lisa, but they’re after you now.’
Collette gasps.
The policewoman carries on, presses her point home, ‘And Lisa? Remember. We have plenty enough evidence to prosecute you too, you know. It doesn’t look good, from where I’m standing; we know Stott’s using that place to launder money, and when we bring him down, every single person who handled money in that place will be going down with him. So then it won’t just be Tony Stott who’s looking for you. It’ll be Interpol, too. Your shout, Lisa.’
You bitch. You bitch.
‘And Lisa?’
‘What?’
‘One other thing you need to think about, Lisa. If we know you’re back, how long do you think it’ll be before other people do, too?’
Collette hits the off button, hurls the phone at the bed. Lets her tension out in a single roar, stifles it by biting the back of her arm. Leaves a ring of teeth marks in the flesh. Shouts once more and throws herself on to the chair to punch, punch, punch weakly at its padded back. Fuck! I need some exercise. I’m shut up in this damn room all day, or staring at Janine, and – how did she find me? How the hell did she find me? I’ve been so careful. I didn’t even give a name when I bought the SIM. How did she find me?
Well, she found you before. Just like she always has. Her and Tony. All of them, on your arse, catching up every time you run; you’re a sitting duck.
