by Mark Edwards
‘Let’s go and have that chat,’ she said.
Nina pulled a face. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Yes, Nina. We do.’
They carried their glasses up the stairs and into the living room. Even though she had lived here for two years, Isabel sometimes still caught her breath when she entered this space, with its floor-to-ceiling glass. Rain was coming but the last of the morning sunshine strained through the clouds, filling the room with watery, shifting light.
‘My God, it’s hot in here,’ Nina said, shrugging off her jacket.
‘I know.’ She explained about the thermostat.
‘Let me guess, Darpak doesn’t want to pay anyone to fix it.’ She met Isabel’s eye. ‘So how is everything with my brother?’
‘It’s fine. But we’re not here to talk about me.’
Nina sighed.
‘Amber told me about what happened,’ Isabel said. ‘With Gavin.’
Nina wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
So that was the way she was going to play it. Denial.
‘He assaulted you,’ Isabel said, raising her voice a fraction and taking a step towards her sister-in-law. ‘You need to report it.’
Nina went over to the window, facing the view. Tower blocks and church steeples. The Crystal Palace TV transmitter standing tall in the distance. ‘I can’t,’ she said.
Isabel put her wine down and approached Nina, who immediately tried to move away. Isabel grabbed her arm. ‘Stop trying to get away from me! You have to report him, Nina. Amber told me what he did. Thrusting his dick at you. Trying to—’
Nina winced. ‘Don’t.’ She moved away from Isabel again. ‘Please, can we open a window? It’s so hot I think I’m going to collapse.’
‘Fine.’ Isabel slid open the doors to the balcony. Winter air flooded into the room. ‘Better?’
‘Much.’ There was a sheen of sweat on Nina’s forehead, which she wiped away. ‘Thank you. But Izzy, I’m not going to the police. I can’t face it.’
‘Why? Because it’ll ruin your budding modelling career?’
Nina looked appalled. ‘How can you say that? Do you think I’m that shallow?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t get it, Izzy. You’re talking like it’s always been a dream of mine to be a model. I hadn’t even thought about modelling until I met Gavin.’
‘But you want to do it, don’t you?’
Nina shrugged. ‘Yeah, if it happens, great. I’d be pretty stupid to pass up on this opportunity, wouldn’t I? But it’s not my desperate desire to parade catwalks and be in magazines that’s stopping me from reporting Gavin.’
‘Then what is it?’
Nina was still sweating, despite the chill that was now entering the room. She dragged a hand across her brow again. ‘Izzy, can we leave it, please? I need to go to the toilet.’
She left the room and Isabel swore aloud. Should she stop pushing Nina? She was clearly distressed. It might be best to leave it . . . but on the other hand Isabel felt very strongly that Gavin needed to be stopped. Somebody had to speak up. Perhaps Amber, who had apparently suffered harassment at his hands for years, could do it. But it would be much stronger coming from Nina, with Amber backing her up as a witness.
Isabel understood why women so often didn’t report incidents like this. She had recently watched a documentary that detailed what it was like for a victim of rape to go through the whole legal process, and the pitifully low percentage of reported rapes that ended with a conviction. It was the same with assault. Yes, Nina had a witness, but that didn’t diminish the trauma of making statements to the police, of standing up in court, of having to relive the encounter over and over again. Isabel liked to think that she wouldn’t hesitate to come forward if it happened to her – until she remembered all the times she had been touched, all the suggestive ‘jokes’ and unwelcome approaches she’d suffered. She had never reported any of those men. She had pretended not to care, pretended to absorb each affront as if it hadn’t hurt. Persuaded herself that they hadn’t meant any harm. They were just men. It was the way of the world.
Maybe if she was Nina she would want to forget about it too.
She wished she could think straight, that the cobwebs of sleep weren’t still clogging her brain.
Nina returned, and Isabel was shocked to see a smear of white powder beneath her left nostril. Isabel knew Nina smoked weed quite regularly but she had never mentioned taking cocaine before.
‘You’re doing coke?’
Nina rubbed at her nose. ‘Please don’t tell me off, Izzy. I can’t bear it. All you do is judge, judge, judge!’
Isabel held up her hands. ‘Hey, I’m not judging you.’
‘You are. I don’t need to stay here and listen to you lecturing me.’ She strode towards the door.
Isabel stepped into her path.
Nina screamed in her face. ‘Leave me alone!’
Chapter 50
Nina’s expression – the look of a child caught stealing, the hot flush of shame and fear – told Jessica everything. And Nina must have seen the shocked realisation reflected back by Jessica because suddenly the car was moving again, backing out of the parking space, her hands frantically moving the wheel back and forth, engine growling as she stamped on the clutch.
‘What the hell is she doing?’ Amber asked, stepping forward.
Jessica shouted, ‘No!’ but it was too late. Head down, Nina reversed at speed out of the parking spot.
Straight into Amber.
She went down, the sickening smack of bone hitting asphalt, and Nina gawped out through the car window, mouth wide open, unable to reverse further, to get away.
Jessica rushed over and knelt by Amber. She wasn’t moving and Jessica grabbed her wrist to feel for a pulse, but there was no need – the contact made Amber open her eyes. She tried to move and let out a cry of agony.
‘Stay still!’ Jessica said, groping in her pocket for her phone. Still crouching on the road, Jessica dialled 999. From the corner of her eye she was aware of Nina getting out of the car, standing a few feet away with her hands in her hair, clearly horrified by what she’d done. Jessica shouted into the phone: ‘I need an ambulance.’
She met Nina’s eye. ‘Police too.’
And Nina ran.
Jessica hesitated. She didn’t want to leave Amber here on her own, but she couldn’t let Nina get away.
Amber saw her indecision. ‘Go. Stop her. I’ll be . . . fine.’ She grimaced with pain.
‘Here. Take this.’ Jessica pushed her phone into Amber’s hand and sprang to her feet.
Nina was by the door to the building, looking left and right, panicking like a rabbit chased by dogs. To the right was a dead end. Jessica was to Nina’s left.
‘Don’t move!’ Jessica shouted, and that broke the spell. Nina turned, yanked open the door and vanished into the building.
With one last look back at Amber, who had closed her eyes, beads of sweat popping on her forehead, Jessica followed.
As she entered the building she heard Nina’s footsteps echoing down the stairwell. She called, ‘Wait!’ but there was no response, only the sound of a door slamming above. Jessica increased her pace until she reached the door of Amber’s studio. She peered inside but there was no sign of Nina. She must have gone up further.
Jessica climbed the remaining steps until she reached a heavy grey door with FIRE EXIT stamped in block capitals on its surface. She pushed it open and stepped out on to the flat roof of the building.
Nina stood at the centre of the empty space, shoulders slumped, panting. The rooftops of London stretched out behind her. Up here, the wind was strong and the sun had disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds. Once again Nina met Jessica’s eye and Jessica could see the shame and fear there. She was sweating despite the cold, hair whipping into her face. She looked very far from her usual sleek self.
‘Tell me,’ Jessica said, taking a step towards
Nina. She had to shout to make her voice heard through the wind.
Nina said something but her words were blown away, and Jessica had to take another step towards her, so they were now just six feet apart.
‘You killed Izzy,’ Jessica said.
It had all come to her when she’d seen Nina in that grey car. Because it wasn’t just shame and fear she’d seen in Nina’s eyes. It was guilt. All at once the pieces slid into place:
Amber had told Izzy about what she’d seen at Gavin’s studio. Izzy would have called Nina, told her she wanted to talk to her about it. And after Will and that creep Ryan had left, Nina must have come round. Jessica could picture it. A fight had broken out between them, Nina refusing to back down and Izzy – always so strong-willed, so sure about what was right and wrong – would have kept on at her, trying to persuade her.
And Nina, desperate and afraid, had lashed out. A split second that changed everything.
But Nina was shaking her head. ‘No . . . No, I didn’t . . .’
‘Liar! You killed Izzy because she tried to make you report Gavin for assaulting you. That’s right, isn’t it? You didn’t want to wreck your new modelling career.’ Jessica spat out the words with disgust.
Nina looked stricken, but she shook her head again. ‘That’s not right. I didn’t even care about being a model, not that much. Not enough to kill someone. To kill Izzy. She was my friend, Jess. Please, you have to believe me.’
‘No! You’re lying. You murdered her! Oh my God, Nina, how could you live with yourself for all these years? Coming to family lunches? Hanging out with me and my children? Enjoying all the fruits of your fucking modelling career?’
She took another couple of steps towards Nina, and Nina scurried backwards until she was only a few feet from the edge of the rooftop. Jessica moved closer still, Nina peering back over her own shoulder, aware of the fatal drop behind her, eyes darting left and right, again reminding Jessica of a hunted animal.
‘How do you sleep at night, huh?’ Jessica yelled. ‘How the hell can you live with yourself?’
Nina sobbed. ‘I swear, Jess. It was an accident.’
‘Then why have you been following me around?’
‘I . . .’ She made an attempt to stand straight. ‘It was only twice. It was because I wanted to talk to you, to tell you . . . But I lost my nerve.’
‘You were going to confess? Tell me you killed her?’
‘No!’ Nina pushed her hair out of her eyes, but the wind whipped it straight back. ‘I was going to tell you I was there. Before Izzy did.’
‘What?’
Nina hung her head. ‘I wanted to tell you before Izzy did.’
It took a second for the meaning to sink in. ‘Wait. You think Izzy has actually come back? That her ghost has been talking to Olivia?’
‘I didn’t know. I saw your mum and she told me how everything had escalated. All the stuff Olivia knew, and how you’d got some expert involved, the same one who helped you with your poltergeist.’
‘Oh my God.’ Jessica remembered how Nina had always been fascinated by stories about Larry. And she remembered Mum telling her she’d bumped into Nina and had a chat with her.
‘You don’t know what I’ve been through the past five years,’ Nina said, her voice cracked and pathetic. ‘My brother, you, your mum . . . Seeing your pain but not being able to tell you what I saw. And she was my friend too. I loved her too, Jess.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s not . . . I’ve been on pills ever since it happened. Anti-anxiety pills. Sleeping tablets. Whatever I could get my hands on. You ask how I can sleep – well, that’s how. And even then I dream about her. Every night. She’s haunted me, Jess, ever since it happened.’
Nina was crying again, but Jessica refused to allow herself to feel sympathy. They were crocodile tears. She jabbed a finger at Nina. ‘You feel guilty because you pushed her.’
‘No! Guilty because I saw her fall. And I hid it. I didn’t know if anyone would believe me when I told them it was an accident. I panicked, Jess. There was the cocaine too. I thought if people knew I’d given her the coke they would say it was all my fault, even if they believed I hadn’t pushed her. Or they would say I was so high I wouldn’t know what I’d done. I couldn’t bear the thought of it . . . The shame. I have aunties and uncles, a grandmother . . . What would they think? And worst of all, what would Darpak think? Even if he believed me, he would still hate me. I’d caused the accident. I’d given Izzy drugs.’
Nina took a shuddering breath. ‘I rationalised it. Isabel was already dead. What good would it do, telling people I was there?’ She looked at Jessica with red eyes. ‘I sneaked out the back door. I ran.’
This speech appeared to take away the last of Nina’s strength. Her shoulders drooped, her head slumped. The tears dried up, as if she didn’t even have the energy to cry.
While she was speaking, the wind had dropped so the air on the rooftop was almost still and calm. Jessica took a half-step forward, clenching her fists, her mind torn in two. Nina sounded sincere. She looked so young, so broken, the beauty that she used to glide through life stripped away to expose the weakness at her core. She looked like a lost little girl, and half of Jessica wanted to comfort her, to take her in her arms and soothe her.
But the other half of her was screaming, her anger gauge swinging so far and fast it had caught fire. This half of her didn’t believe a word Nina was saying. Nina’s tears were tears of self-pity. She had been caught, exposed. She was terrified of what was going to happen to her and she was spewing lies in a desperate attempt to save her own skin.
It was as if grief and despair and frustration – everything Jessica had felt since she’d lost her sister – were chemical elements, combining in her veins to create an inferno. A red mist enveloped her. She looked at the woman before her and saw a murderer, a thief of life. A liar.
One good shove. That was all it had taken to snuff out Isabel’s life. And it would only take one good shove now to get revenge.
To get justice.
Nina must have seen the rage burning in Jessica’s eyes because she took a couple of steps away from her, to the very edge of the building.
Jessica moved towards her.
Chapter 51
March 2013
‘Leave me alone!’ Nina shouted.
Isabel put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. This was getting out of control. She needed to do something to get Nina back onside, to stop her from storming off. She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I was going to ask if I could have some of your coke.’
‘What?’
‘Just a little. I need something to wake me up. If that’s okay.’
Nina paused, suddenly unsure.
‘Please.’
‘Yeah. Okay.’ Nina produced a wrap of coke from her bag and knelt by the coffee table, chopping out a couple of lines. ‘Help yourself.’
Isabel knelt beside her. It had been a long time since she had done coke. She had forgotten how it made her feel instantly more alert and awake. The sense of certainty came back and she remembered why she had asked Nina to come here.
She sprang to her feet and grabbed hold of Nina’s arm.
‘You have to report that creep.’
‘Oh God. I thought you were going to stop bugging me.’
Nina broke free and escaped through the open doors on to the balcony. Isabel followed, more determined than ever to persuade Nina to do the right thing. It was bitterly cold outside and the air was heavy with the promise of rain.
Isabel went over to the railing, standing with her back to it. Nina remained by the door. She was still sweating. Exactly how much coke had she taken this morning?
‘Listen,’ Isabel began to say, ‘I know why you might not want to report him. I know why you’re scared. But you have to do it. And if you won’t, I will.’
She took out her phone and pushed herself up until she was perched on the edge of the railing, legs bent so her feet were fl
at against the wrought iron. She had done this many times before.
Nina paced in front of her like a crazed polar bear in an enclosure. ‘No!’ she said. ‘You can’t.’
‘It’s not just for you,’ Isabel said, the cocaine buzzing in her blood, making her feel absolutely certain she was doing the right thing. ‘It’s for all the women he’s going to do it to in the future. How would you feel if you heard he’d raped someone? Could you live with that? I know I couldn’t. That’s why I have to do it, Nina. And you’re going to talk to the police.’
She unlocked her phone and began to thumb the screen, looking for the number of the local police station.
‘Stop it.’ Nina stepped closer to her. Her eyes were wide, arms waving, sweat popping on her skin. ‘You don’t understand.’
But Isabel wasn’t listening. She was going to do this, do the right thing. That arsehole Gavin wasn’t going to get away with it, not this time.
She was so busy searching for the local police number that she didn’t notice Nina step closer to her, not until she looked up and saw Nina right there in her face.
‘No,’ Nina said. ‘I won’t let you.’ She lunged for the phone.
Instinctively, Isabel recoiled.
There was a moment when she felt herself suspended, teetering. She tried to grab the railing, but it was too late, she had lost her balance, and she heard Nina cry out, and then she was falling. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes. All she felt was a screaming blast of panic. Terror.
And then she was gone.
Chapter 52
Jessica stared at Nina through the red mist, arms out before her, not thinking of the consequences, not thinking about anything.
‘Please. Jess. What are you doing?’ Nina was frozen to the spot, the precipice just a foot behind her.
Now the air was still, Jessica no longer had to raise her voice. ‘This is for Izzy,’ she said, taking another step forward.
‘No, Jess, please.’ Nina’s words accelerated, tumbling over each other. ‘I swear I promise it was an accident, an accident. I tried to grab the phone and she fell and . . . and . . . Jessica please I’m not lying, I’m not!’
