‘It’s Amy,’ I say in my bestest indoor voice. I’m good at remembering the things that make her head hurt and how not to do them. ‘She’s done a stinky poo and her nappy is leaking.’
She sighs, but only a little one, and she doesn’t shout or sound angry. She looks like all her parts are heavy as she gets off the bed and follows me to where Amy is still crawling around the landing, the stain on her babygro spreading down her leg now.
‘Oh Jesus!’ She’s always talking to God and Jesus, as if everything that goes wrong in our house is their fault. I’ve never met Jesus, but Mummy doesn’t seem to like him a lot – even though she’s always asking him for things.
‘Sorry, Mummy, I tried to help,’ I say. She doesn’t answer me or even look at me, but at least she doesn’t shout.
‘Oh God.’ She has taken off Amy’s babygro and the poo is everywhere. It stinks. One side of her nappy has come undone and her leg is covered in thick brown gloop. Mum puts her back down on the floor and pushes open the bathroom door, turns on the shower.
‘Can I have a bath too?’ I ask. I love the bath. We get to play and splash around and Amy always hugs on to me like I’m the mummy. ‘Please?’
‘When I’ve got this mess off her,’ Mum promises, and she even smiles a bit at me remembering my manners. She strips Amy down and plonks her under the shower, the poo running off her into the plughole. Amy starts to scream straight away and puts out her arms to me. I put my hand under the water.
‘It’s a bit chilly.’
Mum doesn’t look happy at my helping; she pulls her annoyed face and moves the hotter colder switch.
‘Can I get in now?’ All the poo has gone down the plughole and I’m desperate to get in to play with my sister. Mum sighs – I’m going on again – but she nods and I pull off my clothes, excited, and struggle to swing my leg over the side of the bath. I want to show her how much of a big girl I am getting in by myself, but she doesn’t even notice. She picks me up and plonks me in the bath next to Amy. I put the plug in just like I always do and sit under the shower as the water fills up the sides.
‘Watch her a second for me,’ Mum says, and gives me a frowny look. ‘Have you got her?’
I nod. Amy is sitting between my legs and I wrap my arms around her chest as Mum disappears from sight.
‘Here we go, Amy.’ I show her the little blue boat with the squirrel captain and she laughs when I duck it under the water and it bobs back up to the top.
The water on my head feels lovely and warm – I’m so grown up now that I don’t even mind any more when a little bit gets on my face. Amy puts her hands out to the taps and grabs hold of one, tries to pull herself up. She’s such a naughty little monkey – I always call her that – and she loves to stand up even though she can’t walk yet. I’m trying to teach her but she always falls back on her bum after a few seconds. I laugh and pull her back down. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ I say to her like I’ve heard Daddy say. She laughs louder, like we’re playing a game, and tries to crawl forward. The water isn’t very high, and it’s okay, it’s not up to her face when she crawls yet.
I get a little shock when the water falling on my head goes cold. ‘Mum!’ I shout. ‘It’s gone chilly!’
Mum doesn’t come and the water is freezing now. It’s filling the bath and soon we’ll be sat in a whole puddle of it. It’s okay, though, I know how to turn it off, I can stop it freezing us before Mum comes to put it warm again. I’m so grown up now, I think as I stand up to turn off the shower knob. I’m even going to school soon and my teachers will be really pleased with how grown up I am. But I turn the knob the wrong way first time, silly billy me, and the water goes faster and faster. Quickly I turn it the other way, but my hands are wet now and the tap is wet and my fingers are just slipping round and round on the cold silver. ‘Mum?’
Phew, it’s okay, the shower knob turns and the water goes off. ‘Thank goodness,’ I say to Amy with a grin. I’ve heard Daddy say that too and I like the way it sounds. Goodness. Oh goodness.
I turn around to smile at my sister and laugh to see her messing around under the water.
‘Oh Amy! You silly monkey.’ I pull her back up to sit in between my legs, just like Mummy said, but she feels heavier now, and her eyes are closed. I didn’t even know she was tired. ‘Amy, wake up, baba.’
She’s not waking up. And I know then that there’s something very, very wrong. I can feel myself starting to panic, the way I felt when I knocked my drink off the table and Mummy yelled and said why did I have to be so difficult? I give Amy a little shake – not too hard – but she is still sleeping.
‘Mum!’ I’m screaming really loud now, even though I’ve been told not to shout, not to give Mummy a headache, but I can’t help it and I can’t stop myself crying. ‘Mummy!’
Mum takes a long ages, but then she pushes open the door and suddenly she’s screaming and crying and pulling Amy away from me, out of the water. This is bad, this is really bad, and I’m crying lots now, but Mummy doesn’t even tell me to shut up or stop whingeing and I wish she would just yell at me or send me to bed and I wish Amy would cry or be a nightmare just like the other days. Then Mummy is on her phone and she tells me to get out of the way – only she uses one of those naughty words that Daddy doesn’t like and is always telling me not to use – and I run away into my bedroom and climb into the bottom of my wardrobe where I sit, naked and cold and being a cry-baby until my daddy comes to find me and take me to Nanny’s house for a little holiday. And Mummy and Amy aren’t there any more and Amy never comes back again and I know it’s my fault.
74
Bea
Bea entered the bar area and scanned the room for Adam. She eventually found him huddled into the corner of one of the pub’s private booths, staring at the table, his face a mottled grey.
‘Oh Adam.’ She slid into the booth and wrapped her arms around her best friend’s husband, who sat rigidly while she squeezed him tightly.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he muttered. ‘I should be with the boys.’
‘Are they with your mum? How are they doing? If you need anything …’ She trailed off, knowing how empty the platitude sounded. If there’s anything I can do … if you need any help … She couldn’t be a mum or a wife, and that was what they needed – the only thing they needed.
‘They’re doing awful. Toby hasn’t spoken since I picked him up from school that day, and Noah hasn’t stopped screaming. We’re staying at Mum’s because I can’t bear to go back to the house, but we can’t stay there forever. What are we going to do, Bea? What will we do without her?’
For the third time that day, hot, angry tears sprang to Bea’s eyes, only this time she didn’t sniff and wipe them away, just let them fall. She’d barely stopped crying herself in the two days since the call had come from Eleanor’s mother, who had been barely coherent as she’d broken the news. Bea had tried to call Karen the minute she put down the phone, but there had been no answer; she’d taken a taxi to her house and there had been only darkness. Karen hadn’t been to work and they would tell her nothing – or they knew nothing. Bea was hurt, confused and angry; it felt as though she’d lost two friends in the space of a week. She had no answer to Adam’s question. She didn’t know how they were going to cope; she didn’t know if any of them would be okay ever again.
‘Do they have any idea who was responsible?’
Adam laughed, a hollow sound with no humour. ‘I was prime suspect number one. Luckily I was in the office all day rather than travelling; there’s no way I could have gone home. They don’t think it was a robbery, as nothing was taken. The neighbours heard her arguing with someone. The police are questioning Karen – did you know?’
‘Karen?’ Bea was confused. ‘Why? Wouldn’t she have been at work too?’
Adam looked at her, and for the first time she took in the red rims and the puffiness around his eyes. He looked completely broken. ‘She’d been suspended that week. I thought you’d know.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Eleanor had been acting really strange, and not just new-baby strange. We barely spoke, and when she did speak to me it was to snap at me about how little I did, or how little I understood.’
Bea sighed. ‘We found out that Michael is married. Eleanor didn’t take it well – you know how she felt about that kind of thing, the sacred family unit and all that. She hadn’t spoken to Karen since she found out.’
‘Well she must have started. That’s why Karen was taken in for questioning: she was seen at our house the morning Eleanor … the morning it happened.’
‘I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t spoken to Karen in over a week. She wouldn’t answer my calls.’
Bea thought back to the date her best friend had set up for her, the video emailed to her workmates. What the hell was going on with Karen? It wasn’t like her; she’d always been so together, never one for nasty, malicious games. The conversation they’d had just a few weeks before flashed through her mind.
‘I need to ask you a question.’ She looked down at the table, unable to meet Adam’s eyes. ‘Before we fell out, Karen said she’d seen you with one of her patients. She thought you were having an affair.’
If it was possible for Adam’s face to lose even more colour, Bea was sure it happened at her words.
‘I wouldn’t … I couldn’t …’
She reached out a hand and touched his arm. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Whatever happened, it’s not important.’
‘Of course it is. I can’t allow people to believe I could do that to Eleanor.’ He let out a sigh. ‘Let’s face it, the last few months I was a shit husband. I worked late on purpose to avoid whatever I might have done or said wrong that day, when Els needed me there for her and the boys. I got out of the house at any opportunity; I went to the gym, for Christ’s sake – I haven’t been to the gym in years! I was so selfish, I just kept thinking about how I needed space and time to myself when I should have been spending every last minute with my family. Oh God, if I could just go back and be the husband she deserved …’
He was either telling the truth or a very good liar; Bea wasn’t sure which. Her head was full of all the things that had happened to the three of them over the last couple of months, and she had no idea what the hell was going on. Karen wouldn’t lie about seeing Adam with another woman. And this patient of hers, Bea was sure she was real too. So what was the truth? And who could she trust? But most importantly, with Eleanor gone and Karen missing, what would happen to them now?
75
Bea
‘Bea, it’s Michael. Can you let me in? We need to talk.’
Bea pressed the talk button on the intercom and injected as much venom into her voice as she could manage. ‘I’d rather shit in my hands and clap. Go away.’
There was a silence, filled only by the static that indicated Michael still had his finger on the buzzer.
‘Look,’ he said at last. ‘I know you think I’m to blame for what happened—’
‘That’s because it’s your fault,’ Bea interrupted. ‘I know you aren’t responsible for …’ She couldn’t say the words. Eleanor’s death. ‘But you’re to blame for what has happened to us. You’re the reason none of us were speaking. Why are you even here? You should be with Karen, supporting her. Isn’t she being questioned again?’
‘I have no idea. We had a huge argument the night before … the night before Eleanor … about this patient of hers, and she told me to go back to … to go home. She won’t talk to me, she won’t let me in the house and I don’t want to let myself in – it’s her home after all. I was hoping you could talk to her, make her see sense …’
‘Piss off, Michael. Sounds like she’s already seen sense. Go home to your family.’
Bea released the button and wandered round the front room, picking up the remote and moving it from the sofa to the table, tidying the magazines from the table to the sofa. The buzzer didn’t sound again. Was he still outside? She peered through the useless peephole; there was no one in the narrow hallway, no eye staring back at her. He couldn’t be in the hall, not unless someone let him in through the front. She was just being stupid.
So Karen and Michael were no more. In that case, why hadn’t she been answering Bea’s calls? It had been nearly two weeks since they last spoke – had she been alone since Eleanor’s death? Whatever their differences, Karen surely couldn’t go through this alone.
From the front window of the flat she could only see a corner of the doorstep, but it looked empty. No cars waited in the street outside. She backed away from the window, letting the curtain fall limply back into place. Anger gave way to an uneasy feeling. Should she be scared of him?
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. This is Michael. You’ve known him for two years. He sang karaoke at your birthday party and you’ve slept on his sofa. There’s nothing dangerous about him.
Except there’s a lot you don’t know about him. You don’t know his wife, or his children. You don’t know where he sleeps at weekends, whether he reads his twin daughters bedtime stories or if he thinks of Karen while he’s having sex with his wife. And there’s someone else you thought you knew. Karen. But you didn’t know she was a mistress. Or what had happened to her sister. Do you know she didn’t kill your best friend?
She jumped at the sound of knocking at the front door. Someone had let him in – probably fucking Tara from upstairs, stupid cow. Now what was she going to do?
She picked up her mobile and keyed 999 without pressing dial. Edging closer to the door as quietly as she could manage with her heart beating a tattoo through her chest and her ragged breathing as an accompaniment, she pressed a hand against it. Would he go away if she didn’t answer? Or would he try to kick it down?
‘Bea?’
The voice didn’t belong to Michael – not unless he’d had a sex change in the ten minutes since she’d told him to get lost. It was Tara, the dozy mare from upstairs and the least threatening person she knew. Bea had never been so happy to hear her voice.
‘Thank God it’s you.’ She threw open the door, half expecting at the last minute to see Michael with his arm around Tara’s neck like a low-budget slasher-movie villain. But Tara was alone, a folded piece of paper in her hand and her usual vacant expression on her face.
‘Some guy downstairs asked me to give you this.’ She handed Bea the note and waited expectantly for her to open it. Bea grasped the piece of paper and plastered on a bright smile.
‘Thanks, hun!’ She made a move to close the door, but Tara stayed rooted to the spot.
‘Seemed pretty intense,’ she continued, either oblivious to Bea’s desire to escape or pretending to be. ‘He your new boyfriend or something?’
‘Or something,’ Bea replied. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I was in the middle of cooking tea. Open flame and all that. Can’t burn the building down!’ And without waiting for Tara’s reply, she closed the door in the waiting girl’s face.
She practically threw the paper on to the coffee table while she went to pour herself a glass of wine. She was going to need to be sitting down and not completely sober to read whatever Michael had to say to her. Hearing him say Eleanor’s name had been like stepping on a plug – a painful shock followed by a dull ache.
Glass in hand, she sank into the cream sofa and fingered the edge of the paper. She could so easily throw it away, burn it, flush it down the toilet, but she knew she wouldn’t. People only did that in films. In real life it would take a heart of ice not to be curious, and hopeful. And petrified.
Breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth, like Paul McKenna had taught her when she was trying to think herself thin, Bea unfolded the paper.
She’d expected to see line after line of pl
eading and apologies. Instead she saw just two sentences.
I know who her patient was. Call me.
76
How did you feel when you saw the police waiting for you at your house?
I was scared, of course. I knew something bad must have happened. It was all part of her plan.
What do you think Jessica’s plan for you was?
She was going to turn everyone against me. She wanted to take away everything I’d worked so hard for: my career, my relationship, my friends.
How had you worked hard for those things? Aren’t friendships and relationships a normal part of life? How did you have to work harder than anyone else?
You know why.
Because you had to deceive people to get them? Michael’s wife and family, your friends.
I suppose you could say that. I’m not going to pretend I haven’t lied to people, but if you tell the truth, sometimes people get hurt. No one wants to know the truth anyway; they pretend to but they don’t.
What do you mean by that?
Take Eleanor, for example. She always said that if she found out Adam was cheating on her she would get rid of him straight away, and yet when it came to it she didn’t even ask him for the truth. She would rather not know and pretend there was nothing wrong than face the truth and have to make a difficult decision. And if you want to talk about Michael’s wife – if there was ever anyone who didn’t want to face the truth, it was her. Do you think she didn’t suspect for a second that her husband might not be working away all week? He had a whole other life, for goodness’ sake. If she’d wanted to find out the truth, she could have done it at any point. She only had to follow him once, or ask what the extra set of keys on his key ring was for. She didn’t find out because she never wanted to.
So it’s okay to lie if the truth would hurt people?
Before I Let You In Page 25
