Keep You Close

by Lucie Whitehouse

  ‘But it’s not burglary if the owner asks you in, is it?’

  He scrambled to his feet. Under the studio’s relatively low ceiling, he seemed even taller and as he stepped towards her, Rowan felt a moment of physical fear. He was strong – much stronger than she was.

  ‘She would have given them to me if I’d asked. Don’t act like I’m stealing.’

  She considered that. Marianne did give her friends sketches – her own were downstairs in the wardrobe as they spoke. ‘Why didn’t you ask then?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you ask Adam just now? And why the hell did you let Mazz go on thinking someone was breaking in?’

  But then, clicking like domino tiles, another run of connections: the nerdy ‘friend of a friend’ with his chickpea curry; the unrenovated kitchen; the radio jingles; the film script that was clearly going nowhere. And the high prices that Marianne’s work commanded. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’ve been selling them.’

  Turk laughed as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard but it didn’t work. The hollowness was patent and, out of the blue, Rowan felt a bolt of pity for him.

  ‘Where did all the money go, Pete?’ she said, gentler. ‘From Liars in Love? You made a fortune, didn’t you? The deal, royalties …’

  ‘It was years ago,’ he spat. ‘Years and years ago. Divide it up, calculate the annual salary, and I’d have made more tossing the fries in McDonald’s.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that have been better than stealing from a friend?’

  A different laugh now, bitter. ‘You’re going to lecture me about taking from Mazz? Really?’ He laughed again and this time he actually sounded amused.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘Come on, Ro, was there ever a bigger leech than you? Coming here like something out of Oliver Twist, the poor little latch-key kid whose daddy didn’t love her, grateful for any pathetic crumb of attention that fell from the Glasses’ table.’

  She felt it like a punch in the gut. Unkind – so unkind – but not untrue. She’d tried not to be or at least not to show it but, yes, at times she had been grateful.

  ‘Mazz was happy when you finally got the message and buggered off,’ he said. ‘She was relieved.’

  Another punch. ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘She didn’t need to. Remember that afternoon? She couldn’t wait to be shot of you.’

  To her horror, Rowan felt a lump in her throat. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare bloody cry, Rowan. It wasn’t true – she knew it wasn’t. He didn’t know the whole story: Marianne had clearly never told him. The thought was fortifying, a shot of energy.

  ‘What’s the plan now?’ Turk was saying. ‘Get your claws into Adam? Sorry if I messed things up this morning but I wouldn’t worry – I’m sure you’ll use your wiles to find a way back in, wind him round your little finger. Poor sod – I should warn him.’

  Don’t rise to it, she cautioned herself. Don’t show him he’s getting to you.

  ‘Perhaps I should put him in touch with Josh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember him? He really liked you, Rowan, I think he loved you, but you dropped him without a word, moved on as if the whole thing had been a one-night stand. He told me you tried to talk to him at the funeral like nothing ever happened.’

  ‘That was years ago, for God’s sake – we were teenagers.’ Stay calm – don’t get distracted. ‘Who do you sell them to?’ she said. ‘Obviously Greenwood doesn’t know anything about it.’

  Turk rolled his eyes as if she were the one beneath contempt. Turning, he went down on his haunches and picked up the sketches that were spread on the floor. Rowan saw an arm, the nape of a neck beneath a low bun, the charcoal silhouette of one of the earlier girls, who had just enough meat on the bone still to appeal to a buyer appreciative of a nubile female body. She watched as he dropped them into the carrying case and clipped it shut.

  ‘Were you threatening her, Peter?’ she said.

  ‘What?’ He looked up from stuffing the case into his rucksack.

  ‘Were you threatening Marianne? Frightening her.’

  He zipped the bag shut with a furious flourish and slung it over his shoulder. She felt the air stir as he pushed past her towards the stairs. ‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’re fucking insane.’

  Rowan sat in the dark. She’d been here for hours – she’d watched the last of the light slip away across the floor like the hem of a wedding dress. On the arm of the sofa, her phone started ringing, startling in the silence, but the number on the screen was Cory’s again. She let it ring out.

  This was how she’d felt years ago, when she’d left Fyfield Road for the last time. Vulnerable as a hermit crab yanked from its borrowed shell, soft flesh exposed to the predators that moved like clouds through the water overhead. She felt like she’d been kicked in the heart.

  The bells of St Giles struck ten and the boiler clicked off. Why had Adam left so abruptly? Why hadn’t he called? If they were strangers, people who’d met in a bar, she’d understand but with their history, the way things were, it didn’t make sense.

  I’ll ring you. When? Had he meant later, when Turk had gone? Or had it just been a formula, a way to make an easy exit? She felt a wave of self-disgust. Who was behaving like a teenager now, picking over his every word for indications that he really did like her? Every word she could remember, anyway, through the fug of booze. Was that what it had been for him, a drunken hook-up? Perhaps – the kinder interpretation – he’d just been looking for comfort with someone who’d loved Marianne like he had. But no: hadn’t he said that Mazz knew the kiss years ago would mean something to him? Hadn’t he said they would always associate getting together with her death? Oh, for God’s sake, Rowan, just stop.

  A darker thought: what if Turk had done what he’d threatened and called him? Maybe he had warned Adam off. But what could he have said? That she’d always loved the Glasses and been grateful for their affection? Adam knew that. And he knew who made the running last night. She hadn’t set out to ‘get her claws into’ him.

  She couldn’t wait to be shot of you. The look on Turk’s face as he’d spat it at her. A leech – was that really how he’d seen her, a disgusting formless creature that latched on to others and sucked? No, it wasn’t true; it just wasn’t. Turk was on the defensive, lashing out. The Glasses had been fond of her – they’d told her, they’d shown her. They’d given her a lot, it was indisputable, but it hadn’t always been one-way traffic.

  At quarter to eleven, the landline rang. Adam had called on the house number when he’d asked her out to dinner; she stood quickly and ran upstairs.

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been calling your cell all day.’

  Cory.

  ‘I left it at a friend’s house last night.’

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of you. It was just luck I remembered Marianne called me from this number once when she dropped her phone in a taxi. I’ve had to go back through my call history and …’

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘It’s late. I was on my way to bed.’

  ‘I have an idea. I’m not sure, at this stage, it’s really just a …’

  ‘What?’ She cut him off.

  ‘Marianne told me her father had affairs. You knew that, right?’

  A cold hand reached between Rowan’s ribs and took hold of her heart.

  ‘What if it wasn’t an accident?’ he said. ‘The death she was talking about. I’ve been over everything again and again and I keep coming back to her breakdown when Seb died. I read a rumour online that there was a woman involved – that Seb was drunk out of his mind over losing a woman. What if that had something to do with it? What if this woman he loved didn’t break up with him but died?’

  When she spoke again, Rowan’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  Twenty-two

  ‘Bryony?’

  The slender girl in the middle of the trio
stopped, seemed to pause, then turned around. Rowan saw James Greenwood’s eyes, his high forehead, and felt a stab of panic: this was a mistake; she shouldn’t have come. Bryony would tell her father and he’d know for sure that something was going on, that Rowan was still poking around days later, that she’d lied when she’d gone to the gallery. As quickly as it came, though, the doubt was replaced by the conviction that, risk though it was, she was doing the right thing. She’d allowed Adam and Turk to sidetrack her but Cory’s call had pulled her back, reminded her of what was at stake.

  ‘I’m Rowan Winter,’ she said, stepping away from the wall. ‘An old friend of Marianne’s. We met briefly at the wake – I don’t know if you’ll remember.’

  Bryony’s face registered a fleeting expression – was it surprise?

  ‘I’m sorry to accost you like this. I’m staying at the house at the moment, looking after it for Jacqueline. I wondered if we could talk.’

  The dark-haired girl on Bryony’s left raised her eyebrows a degree or two, as if to say, minder-like, ‘Is this woman bothering you, Bry?’

  ‘Talk?’ Bryony shook her head. ‘No. I mean, I don’t know – I’m not sure.’

  ‘A couple of minutes,’ Rowan said.

  ‘I don’t … I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The media – journalists – the whole thing’s just out of …’

  ‘I’m not a journalist. Please.’

  Bryony looked at her then seemed to give way. ‘Okay, but only if it’s really quick. I have to finish an essay for a class this afternoon and this is the only time I’ve got. I was just going to quickly buy some lunch and …’

  ‘Do you want us to wait?’ asked the other girl, a petite strawberry blonde, but Bryony shook her head. Her purse was in her hand and she opened it and took out a folded note. ‘Will you get me a chicken sandwich? And some orange juice.’

  Rowan waited until they moved off. As they crossed the road, the dark girl turned her head and gave her a monitory look: She’s grieving, all right, so don’t mess with her.

  It was a better day than the last time Rowan had come, no snow at least, but the breeze had a sharp edge and Bryony pulled her blazer tighter and crossed her arms. Her friends had both been wearing the giant knitted Mobius strips that nine out of ten of the Sixth Form seemed to have but Bryony’s scarf was made of fine cotton, perhaps Indian, shot through with silver thread. There were flicks of pewter liner at the corners of her eyes, against school rules if they were still the same.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Rowan. ‘I know you two were close.’

  ‘I loved her,’ Bryony said simply.

  ‘Me, too.’

  Bryony only nodded and Rowan saw that her eyes had filled with tears. She cautioned herself to be careful, tread gently. ‘It’s my biggest regret,’ she said, ‘that we didn’t get a chance to straighten things out before …’

  Not yet trusting herself to speak, Bryony gave another upward nod.

  ‘I’m sorry, I know this seems insensitive – it is – but I wanted to ask you if you thought anything was bothering Marianne before it happened. Had she talked to you about anything? Peter Turk told me the two of you used to talk a lot so I wondered …’

  ‘Wasn’t it an accident?’ Bryony looked at her, startled. ‘Why are you asking? You went to see Dad, too, didn’t you, in London?’

  Shit.

  ‘Do you think something happened to her?’

  ‘No – no. That’s not …’ Panicking, Rowan tried to think. ‘I mean, the police are sure it was an accident, aren’t they?’ Behind them, the gate opened and another pair of girls came out, the sound of their laughter almost eerily incongruous. It occurred to Rowan now that if one of the staff saw her with Bryony, she would be the one answering questions. ‘She didn’t ever talk to you about dying?’ she said quickly.

  Bryony stepped backwards as if Rowan had revealed herself to be dangerously unhinged. ‘No. Why would she?’

  She felt as if she were scrambling up a bank of scree that fell away beneath her as fast as she tried to get purchase. ‘No reason,’ she said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘I suppose I just wanted to make sure. Get some closure. It was so … abrupt. When someone goes like that, without warning …’

  ‘Yeah.’ At last, Bryony’s tone seemed to say, something borderline sane.

  ‘Anyway, apologies again for coming to find you like this. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Bryony’s tolerant look suggested that she was the adult here. She frowned, making a crease down the centre of her pale forehead, and Rowan saw James Greenwood again, as if Bryony’s face was a body of water, a river, and his had risen momentarily to the surface before sinking out of sight.

  ‘I’ll leave you to get on with your essay.’ Rowan gestured back at the school. ‘I went here, too, St Helena’s – it was where Mazz and I met.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded, surprised: hadn’t Marianne told her? ‘You know Michael Cory was painting her portrait – still is? We were in the Upper Sixth when he painted Hanna Ferrara and there was that huge media furore.’ As she said it, however, she realised that Bryony would only have been three or four. ‘I said to your father, it feels so strange that we’d talked about him so much then, Marianne and I, and now here he is.’

  Bryony said nothing. Oh, come on, thought Rowan, desperate; throw me a bone here. ‘Do you know him?’ she said, cringing inwardly at the transparency. ‘Through your father – or Marianne?’

  Bryony shrugged. ‘I’ve met him, obviously, through Dad, and two or three times at Marianne’s, when I went over.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘You’ve met him?’

  Rowan calculated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know. He’s all right, a bit intense but not as much as the hype would have you believe.’

  ‘What kind of relationship did they have?’

  Bryony’s stare was hard. ‘What are you saying? She was with my dad.’

  ‘No, no, no – sorry. All I meant was, did they get on? Were they on the same wavelength? Were they friends?’

  The hostility level dropped but marginally. ‘I never heard them talk about anything that personal, it was mostly art – what they’d seen, what they’d liked. Styles, techniques, that kind of thing. A lot of it was over my head, to be honest. But yeah, they liked each other. They got on.’

  Keeping off the Banbury Road for as long as possible to minimise the likelihood of bumping into Bryony’s friends, Rowan walked into Summertown and found a seat in the gloomy recesses at the back of Costa Coffee. When he’d called this morning, Cory had announced that he would come to the house at three but she didn’t trust him not to turn up whenever he felt like it and she needed to regroup first. Everything was spinning out of control. Seeking Bryony out had been a big gamble and she’d gleaned nothing she hadn’t already known. Without a doubt, the encounter would be related to Greenwood word for word.

  But what choice had she had? In her efforts to stay a step ahead of Cory, she was running out of lines of inquiry. He was making one connection after another, sure-footedly picking his way towards the truth of what happened back then, while she was struggling to discover anything at all about what happened a month ago. Dead end after dead end, and the few times she’d felt as if she were homing in on something, getting closer, there had been a seismic shift and she’d been thrown sideways. When she stood up again, bruised, the landscape had been transfigured, leaving her not only without an answer but faced with a different question. A different set of questions.

  When she was younger, she’d loved puzzles. She’d been a jigsaw fanatic as a child and, later on, one of her favourite Glass family traditions had been the pre-Christmas purchase of an enormous one – 3,000 pieces, 5,000 – which they set up in the dining room on Boxing Day and worked away at in the grey days before New Year’s Eve. They’d sat, talking or in companionable silence, coffee c
ups or wine glasses at their elbows, and slowly covered the table, all of them making self-deprecatory jokes about how uncool they were, all of them loving it. They’d loved cryptic crosswords, too, and whoever got to The Times first in the morning had to make photocopies for the others on the little Xerox machine in Seb’s office. When Rowan was there, they’d made her a copy, too, and she’d joined in the daily race to finish it. Adam was very good but Seb won most days; the one time she’d beaten him might still go down as her proudest intellectual achievement.

  Now, though, she felt as if she were doing a giant logic puzzle for which there weren’t enough clues. The few there were told her what hadn’t happened and who hadn’t done it but didn’t give her anywhere near enough information to deduce what or who had. So Turk stole the sketches but he hadn’t broken in. Had there ever been a breakin? Possibly not, if the police hadn’t found any evidence. But if the man in the garden wasn’t casing the house, what was he doing? And was he the same man who watched from the window in Benson Place? Drawing her bedroom curtains after midnight on Saturday, she’d seen him standing there again, an unmoving silhouette against the light, and she’d had a disturbing thought: had he seen her with Adam? Watched? She couldn’t remember drawing the curtains but she knew the light had been on.

  Adam. She’d woken up yesterday, the paranoid fog of the hangover almost lifted, and she’d been ashamed of herself. How had she managed to get into such a stew about him not calling? He’d only left precipitately because Turk had been there and he probably thought ringing the same day would make him look a bit keen. He’d call today, most likely, after a decent interval. The thought had cheered her up as she’d walked to North Parade to buy milk and a Sunday paper but as the day had gone on and the phone stayed silent, the negative feelings had started to creep back. Why wasn’t he ringing? Had Turk called him? Or was there something else entirely going on here?

  She’d barely opened the door before Cory pushed past her into the hallway. He was vibrating with impatience so Rowan took her time, closing the door gently, bending to pick up a wet leaf he’d brought in on his boots. She straightened again and gave him a calm smile.