by Hayton, Lee
“I’m not feeling well.”
Victoria didn’t say anything else, and after a minute Nicole stepped back. “Fine. Come in.”
“Is your mother home?”
“She’s at work. Did you want her for something?”
“No, just wondering. How long have you been ill?”
The girl sat on the sofa and pulled a rug over herself. There was a pitcher of orange juice on the table in front of her, and the crusts from toast on a plate.
After a moment more of empty silence, Victoria sat down in a chair to the side. At the school, she’d been geared up for a talk with the teenager she’d met the other day. This surly evasive girl was a different story. There was no indication she’d listen.
“I’ve just come around to let you know that we do have a suspect in your case.”
“Not my case.” Nicole’s retort sounded like criticism. “I haven’t been murdered.”
“You’re right,” Victoria said, keeping her voice gentle. “But the case I thought you might be involved in.”
Nicole wiped her nose with the back of her hand and burrowed deeper into the rug. The TV screen decided too long had elapsed, and a screen saver danced across, advertising the brand. “The papers said a pervert was arrested.”
Papers had got it wrong. They couldn’t arrest Malcolm Carter until he woke up long enough to understand what was happening. Each day that passed would make that event more and more unlikely. “We do have our suspicions, yes. But he’s not able to talk now.”
“Why not?”
He was badly assaulted outside a different high school the day before yesterday.”
For the first time, a look of interest crossed over the girl’s face. “Yeah? What assault?”
“Two parents saw him in the parking lot, and one recognized him from an earlier offense. They were trying to affect a citizen’s arrest when one of them hit him on the side of the head with a garden stake.”
A snort issued from Nicole. “Hardly an assault.”
“There was a two-inch nail sticking out of it. He’s been in a coma since.” Victoria should have felt bad for spilling so much privileged information, but she felt more urgency to make a connection to Nicole, than loyalty to her old job. “Until he wakes up, no one’s going to be able to question him.”
“Paper said there was stuff on his computer, admitting it.”
Yeah, they had. Victoria wondered who had leaked that little gem out to the media. Haggerty himself, maybe. “There’s some admission of guilt, but the man’s been having a hard time lately. He may have been staging this whole thing just to get some attention.”
“Yeah?” Nicole looked at her with eyebrows raised. “People do that?”
Victoria shrugged. “People do a whole lot of weird things you don’t expect. In the meantime, I just want to make sure you're still careful.”
Nicole waved her hand over her prostrate form. “Not much trouble I could be getting into now, is there?”
“Do you know anything about phones?”
The question came out of left field, and Nicole looked puzzled. “Why?”
Reaching into her bag, Victoria produced the phone she’d been forced to buy to contact Edwards. The SIM card had been inserted, and she’d charged the battery in the car, but the rest of it was a mystery. “I keep getting all these messages on the screen.”
She passed it across to Nicole who snorted. “Jeez, you haven’t got anything loaded in. Do you have accounts for any of this stuff?”
Victoria looked at her, expecting an explanation for what “this stuff” entailed, but Nicole just snorted again and starting swiping at the screen, shaking her head.
“What’s your surname?”
“Collins.”
“And your date of birth?”
“January 7th, 1974.”
“Huh.”
Again, Victoria waited for an explanation for the surprised sound but was left stranded. Was that a huh—I didn’t think you were that old, or a huh—I pegged you as much older?
“You really need to get an SD card for this model,” Nicole said, handing the phone back. “There’s hardly any memory on that sucker.”
Victoria swiped at the screen. Instead of having an array of messages, demanding attention, there was a home screen showing the photo Nicole had just taken of her. Looking as exhausted and sick as Nicole did herself. “Nice camera work.”
But the connection stuttered and was gone. Nicole closed her eyes and took a long while to open them again.
Victoria shifted on the sofa. “I’m sorry. You’re ill. I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Hm.”
“You don’t have a driver’s license, do you?”
Nicole laughed and shook her head, then closed her eyes and winced. “Why? You want a lift somewhere?”
When Victoria didn’t answer, she opened her eyes again. “No. I’m not old enough. Mom’s promised to get me lessons after my birthday.”
“Take care of yourself, won’t you?”
Nicole flapped her hand, and Victoria let herself out the front door. She could sit in her car, parked across the street, and keep an eye out, not that Nicole looked fit enough to walk anywhere. Easy work.
She used her new and improved phone to send a message to Edwards, then climbed into her car and pushed the driver’s seat back. Time to settle in for a long, boring wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The beep as a text arrived woke Nicole up from an afternoon nap. There was a long line of drool joining her mouth to her chest. A slight yellowish tint to it from the Cheezits that formed her lunch. She’d thrown them up after a fifteen-minute struggle between doing what she should, and what she wanted. What she wanted, won. She swilled baking soda in her mouth afterward, full of disgust and disappointment.
All that time Nicole had spent trying to stop throwing up during the mornings, and now she was making herself do it just like old times? Bad girl. Disgusting, bad girl.
Her phone had fallen on the floor, and when Nicole stretched out her fingers to catch it, she knocked it even further under. Damn it. Easy tears sprang into her eyes. Everything was against her today. Wiping a sleeve across her mouth, she sat up and then knelt on the floor, head tilted to the side, trying to see exactly where it’d got to. There! Her fingers were so long and thin now they easily swept under the couch to hook it out and up.
“Party @ Sophie Annons House Jeremy will B there.”
Mo was the last person to invite her to a party. For a year, they’d bickered as their old friendship started to fray apart. Nicole’s love for Mo had been what saved her when her weight sunk lower and lower. A visit in hospital after Nicole had fallen and didn’t have the strength to get up, had worked where every other lecture and plea had failed.
“I can’t go to high school by myself,” Mo had whispered. “If you die, I’m coming with you.”
Even now, Nicole didn’t know if Mo had been serious or simply leveraging her affection to manipulate her into stopping. There had been a long period when it didn’t matter. But as Nicole recovered, then went spinning into another addictive cycle—this time with drugs and booze—Mo had stopped feeling like her best friend. Over the long months of summer, Mo had morphed into Nicole’s mother. Distant and always full of advice she didn’t need to hear.
Now Mo was breaking her own rules to text her about a party. Either she was genuinely looking out for Nicole and wanted to give her a chance to reconnect with Jeremy, or it was a last-ditch attempt to bribe back her friendship. Both reasons brought tears back to Nicole’s eyes. Stupid hormones. If she’d never bothered to get well, her body wouldn’t have been able to get knocked up.
Apart from the few months before she started sleeping with Jeremy, Nicole’s periods had been stopped for a couple of years. Sex and pregnancy never having the chance to become locked together in her mind. Then, whammo. Look what started working again?
Nicole had a dress in the wardrobe that she’d only worn onc
e. Thin, spaghetti straps, holding up a shift dress that shimmered with the attachment of thousands of silver sequins. When she’d seen it in-store, it reminded her of the seventies, and she’d bought it instantly, delighted.
In the seventies being too thin was an advantage. No one would’ve stopped Nicole in the street to check if she was alright. Her mother wouldn’t have had long whispered phone calls before casting her off to a shrink who poked and prodded and waited out silences as though they were respites. No one had heard of her good friends Ana or Mia. Good times until Karen Carpenter wrecked it.
A shower was what she needed, to warm her up and wake her up. The illness that dragged her down all day was gone, a figment of her depressed imagination. Jeremy would be there, and Jeremy would see her looking her best. Once again, he’d fall in love with her and regret every moment they spent apart. He wouldn’t sleep with her twice, then stop returning her phone calls. Most of all, he wouldn’t suggest she sleep with his ‘friends’ to earn a gram of coke to liven up the evening.
#
Bright light flicked into Victoria’s half-open eyes, a glint off the windscreen of a passing car, and she yawned. Stakeouts were always so boring, no matter how dangerous the stakes.
Turning her head, Victoria again checked the closed gate across the street. Pity flooded her at the thought of that enormous house, shadowing the tiny, vulnerable girl within it. As a teen, Victoria had once wished their house was bigger. Maybe sporting a sleepout that she could sulk in for long hours after losing a parental battle. But there was privacy, then there was abandonment.
An hour after checking in on Nicole, Victoria had called Mrs. Atiya’s workplace to see what time the woman would be home. Partly to assure herself she’d be relieved of duty at some point, partly to make sure that a mother did indeed exist.
A secretary at the law office had assured Victoria there was an appointment free in two weeks’ time if she wanted to schedule that in. When Victoria said she just wanted to talk to her on the phone, the secretary pointed out that’s what the appointment was for. If she wanted to meet Mrs. Atiya in person, there’d be a month or two more notice required.
Leaning over, Victoria reached into the backseat and grabbed a carry bag. There was a supply of cold coffee. Strong. Enough to keep her awake for the rest of the night, if need be. Though it came with its own consequences. Victoria didn’t have a tiny bladder, but it still had firm limits. Her phone started flashing, signaling an incoming text.
“Haggerty wants an all-nighter.”
Edwards. Sounded like the Captain was taking things out on him. Poor guy. He’d hitched his wagon to the wrong star with her.
Another yawn and Victoria turned back to check the gate. Without even the usual company of a partner to chat with, the observation was starting to resemble torture.
Preferable to finding Nicole dead, though.
She just needed to keep her eyes peeled, and when Mrs. Atiya finally came home, she could get something to eat and maybe grab a few hours’ sleep.
#
On the path down to the gate, Nicole looked across the road and saw the detective sitting in her parked car. Watching her house. Spying. Had she been out there all the time? The thought gave Nicole the creeps.
She ducked down so that her body was shielded by the ivy that grew across the front wall. There was no movement in the car but, squinting, she could make out the shape of Detective Collins’ body.
Front entrance ruled out for the time being, Nicole snuck around the side of the house where a gate led down an alleyway to the side street. The gardener's entrance, according to her mother’s aspirations. The back door, in everyone else’s parlance.
Nicole pressed the release for the gate, wincing as the buzzer sounded. If escaping undetected was what she was after, then waiting another hour till sundown would have aided her more, but there was no way she was prepared to wait that long.
Nicole pushed the gate open just enough to slip through, then pushed it until it clicked back into place. Even though she was wearing ballet slippers, soundless against the pavement except where her foot fell crunching down on leaves, her feet still arched up into tiptoes as she walked down the street. Only relaxing back to flat around the corner, out of sight of her house.
A concern screamed across her head. That cop wouldn’t be out there if there were no danger, but Nicole shook it away and walked faster. There was a party to get to, and a boyfriend to win back. Worrying about a murderer who was in a coma in the hospital was just ridiculous. She clutched her purse string tighter, her fingers fisting around it until her fingernails dug into her soft palm. There was a can of mace in the side pocket if it came down to it. Something her mother had given her instead of supervision.
From the second Nicole had received Mo’s texts, she hadn’t wasted a moment. Her hair fell in a straight curtain over the winding curve of her spine, reflecting the street lights as they turned on overhead. The late afternoon light was fast fading from the sky. Her dress refracted light in a thousand different directions, and her shoes were metallic slippers that echoed the silver of the dress. Full battle make-up had been applied. For school, Nicole wouldn’t usually bother with much. For a party, she wasn’t going in there without a concealing mask. The eyeliner alone would force her not to cry, no matter how bad the night got. Mascara tears a threatened shame that would quell the worst ego blow.
Fuck the people who had their knives out for her, even when she’d done none of them any harm. Fuck the judgers and the haters who thought she should keep her body sacred just because nobody would touch theirs.
If Jeremy still didn’t want her, then fuck him too. Nicole had come prepared with more than just her long-crumbled self-esteem and a can of pepper spray. Either way, she was going to have a good time tonight. Chemicals could be bought cheap, and her mother squirreled far too much cash around the house for emergencies.
Nicole came to a standstill as the thought of just skipping the party came to her. Go straight to chemicals. Do not pass go. Just chill out and crash at home.
But Mo would be there and maybe if Nicole and Jeremy’s relationship was beyond repair, Nicole and Mo’s wasn’t. It could still be possible to save the one constant in her life. At least long enough to have company for her last trip to family planning.
Mo was collecting her at the next corner, having cadged a lift from her older brother. Even with flats, walking to the party would defeat Nicole even if she felt sprightly. Feeling sick made it unthinkable. Her mother was away, her best friend was trying to reconnect, and there was still the possibility that Nicole had perceived indifference from Jeremy where there was only momentary inattention.
Her feet started moving again.
#
It was edging past eight when Victoria got out of the car to stretch. She’d expected a car to pull into the driveway of Nicole’s house, but she was still waiting.
Feeling a nibble of anxiety biting at her stomach, she crossed the road and pushed the bell for entry. It had taken so long last time, she tried to stem her racing brain when there was no immediate answer. But as the minutes ticked by her anxiety ratcheted up to fear.
She pushed the bell again. Perhaps Nicole had fallen asleep. Wasn’t that what you did when you were ill? Perfectly reasonable given the circumstances.
Victoria didn’t believe it for a moment.
This time, she pressed the bell and held her finger down, letting the minutes tick by. When her fingers went into spasm, more than five minutes had passed without an answer.
She fished out her mobile and dialed Nicole’s number. Her voice answered immediately, but the background noise let Victoria know she’d failed. A party was in full swing wherever Nicole was. No way was that the silent empty house in front of her.
“Nicole, where are you? Are you okay?”
There was a long pause, then the phone clicked off. When Victoria tried again, it went straight to voicemail. One job and she’d lost her target.
Vi
ctoria looked around her at the houses bathed in the last glow of dusk. Nicole could be anywhere in the city.
“Shit,” she muttered under her breath.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
One glass was all it took for the beer to go straight to Nicole’s head, inducing a happy fog. Usually, she’d stick to wine or spirits—the bitter taste of beer put her off—but the party was low on choice. It was beer, soft drink, or water.
Her groove was mellow. The sickness that had plagued each waking moment for the past six weeks had gone. In the past, alcohol going straight to her head would’ve led Nicole in quick succession to the room spinning dangerously and the drink coming back up. But today there was none of that. After half a glass more, Nicole felt as though she were floating.
Mo had hung around, and they’d chatted for a while, then she’d left to find something to eat. It could just be the buzz, but Nicole felt the tension between them loosen. Their relationship moving back to comfortable. Closing her eyes to hear the music better, she smiled. Lips spread wide with joy. For the first time in ages, it seemed possible that everything would be okay.
“Dance?”
Nicole’s eyes snapped open to see a boy’s face looming an inch away from hers. Nicole jerked and withdrew a step. Evan—a lab partner from the year before—came into focus.
There were at least two strains of music playing. The dangerous rhythmic beat of hip-hop, and the joyous jump of pop. They should be discordant, but they were in step, each adding to the other. Without being aware, Nicole started to sway to the combined beat and nodded her head. “Sure.”
After a few awkward steps, Nicole lifted her arms and shimmied to make her sequins shine.
“You look like a disco ball,” Evan shouted above the music and Nicole nodded and smiled, spinning away. He got her. They all got her. Everybody here was a friend tonight.
Evan swung her into a foxtrot, then spun her out at arm’s length so quickly her heart skipped with excitement. Tipping her head back, Nicole laughed up at the sky. Through tears of pure joy, she saw the stars blur and kaleidoscope, a quick blink had them reassembled.
