The Date

by Louise Jensen

  ‘I’ve got to tell the police everything. Let them look at the CCTV from Prism and put out a photofit for Ewan.’

  ‘Won’t that look more suspicious? You should think about this properly. They’ll wonder why you haven’t reported it before and you’ve just said you haven’t got the note from the gloves, or the flowers, and you left your shoes in the park. What if they think you’re making everything up? It doesn’t make you sound very credible, does it?’

  And I have to admit it doesn’t.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t think I can wait until next Friday.’ I pace the lounge as I talk. My ankle still twinges but it’s healing.

  Eight strides from the sofa to the TV.

  ‘It’s only three days since we first tried hypnosis, Ali,’ Mr Henderson says. ‘Do you feel ready? You were quite distressed after Friday’s session?’

  A hiss of vanilla from the air freshener.

  ‘I have to—’ A lump in my throat traps the rest of my words.

  Twelve paces from the window to the far wall.

  ‘Has something happened, Ali? You know you can talk to me. I’m here for you.’

  ‘The friend I went out with that night is missing. The police are looking for her. I have to remember anything that might help them. I’m worried sick about her.’ And about myself, although I don’t say this; it sounds horribly self-indulgent to be thinking of myself when Chrissy is God knows where.

  The doorbell chimes, and I edge out into the hallway, phone clasped to my chest.

  Six steps to reach the front door.

  ‘It’s me.’ Matt’s voice floats through the letterbox.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Mr Henderson. Matt’s here.’ I cradle the handset between my chin and cheek as I open the door.

  ‘Are you getting back together?’ It’s an innocuous question but there’s hope in every word. ‘I feel I’ve lost a friend without you next door.’

  ‘He’s here to walk Branwell.’ I mouth ‘Mr Henderson’ to Matt. ‘Bye.’ I end the call.

  Without small talk, I pass Matt Branwell’s lead.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Why is everyone asking me that today?’ I snap.

  ‘Whoa.’ He holds up his hands. ‘You look pale is all. I care.’

  ‘Do you?’ But without waiting for an answer I tell him to enjoy his walk and stalk into the lounge. I slam the door behind me, and the photos of Mum I have propped on the bookcase flutter to the ground, and as I pick them up I think I see something in her eyes.

  Worry? Accusation?

  When Matt comes back I don’t invite him in.

  * * *

  Somehow, I have gone through the motions of cooking a meal, then moving food I cannot taste around my plate, and now I am getting ready for bed as though this is just another ordinary day. I hang my shirt on a hanger and think of all the small things we take for granted. Being able to choose what we wear each day, what we eat, who we spend our time with and I think how impossibly hard it must have been for Dad to have his identity stripped away, along with his freedom and his family.

  I perch on my dressing table stool, my navy scarf with swallows dipping and diving drapes the mirror. I unscrew the lid from my face cream and hover the pot under my nose, breathing in deeply. Roses. In a split second I am transported. Cross-legged on the bed in my parents’ room, watching Mum tug cotton wool from a roll and ball it between her palms.

  ‘Always make time to look after your skin.’ She’d blobbed cream onto the tip of my nose and I had squealed at its coldness.

  I’d rubbed it into my cheeks, sniffing my fingertips when I’d finished. ‘It smells of flowers.’

  ‘Roses,’ Mum had said. ‘My mum used the same brand and promised me if I used it twice a day my skin would be petal soft. Yours too.’

  ‘Will this make me as beautiful as you, Mum?’

  ‘You already are, sweet girl. Inside and out; although I’ll let you into a secret – it’s the inside that really counts.’ She’d picked up her brush that was oyster white and shimmered in the light and ran it through my hair, slowly, methodically, while I counted to one hundred.

  Towards the end, Mum was almost unrecognisable from the woman she once was; stress and illness had aged her terribly. Her body weak, muscles wasted, but she was still beautiful to me as I would be to her now, even if I can no longer see it myself. But what if the inside is dirty and tarnished? What if a person has done something so terrible, so unforgivable, only ugliness remains. What then?

  Tick, tock, Ali.

  Time is running out.

  36

  It’s all escalating rather quickly now, isn’t it, Ali? What was your overriding emotion when you opened the door to the uniformed officers? Fear, I hope. How quickly did the penny drop, hard and solid? Your friend is missing. You hadn’t cared enough to report it yourself. The small pieces of evidence that piece together to form something larger and impossible to ignore.

  They can’t have uncovered everything yet, but they will.

  Tomorrow’s another day.

  Enjoy sleeping in your own bed tonight, Ali. It might be the very last time. This can’t go on much longer.

  TUESDAY

  37

  My phone trills an unknown number, and my stomach lurches in response. Is it him? My date? My tormentor? Picking up my handset I am poised to reject the call, when it crosses my mind it might be Chrissy and, hesitantly, I press the green accept button with my thumb, hoping to hear her voice floating down the line. ‘Ali, you’ll never guess what’s happened.’ And she’ll have a story to tell, an adventure to relay, and I’ll tell her what a fuss she has caused, and one day we’ll laugh about the time we all thought she was missing.

  ‘Hello?’ There’s a hopeful note to my voice.

  ‘Mrs Taylor? It’s PC Willis.

  Time freezes. Surely if it was good news Chrissy would be ringing me. I sink heavily onto the stool and rest my elbows on the breakfast bar, bracing myself for what’s to come, imagining Chrissy’s pale, lifeless body twisted in some ditch.

  ‘You’ve found her.’ It’s a statement, not a question and I don’t know whether to be relieved or concerned when she tells me they haven’t.

  ‘Our intelligence officers have brought a few things to our attention, and some other information has been reported. I wondered if you could pop in, for a chat?’

  She makes it sound so informal. One friend to another.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’ There’s a firmness to her voice I didn’t hear yesterday. I tell her I’ll be along as soon as I can.

  * * *

  Police stations have their own distinctive smell, much the same as primary schools, or hospitals. The second I push open the smeared glass doors and step inside I am clouded by a lingering scent of vomit, disinfectant and memories.

  Sitting on hard, grey plastic chairs, Ben beside me, swinging his chubby legs, feet not reaching the grubby floor, as Mum asked the desk sergeant again where Dad was. What he was supposed to have done. When he was being released. His answer was always the same: ‘We can’t tell you anything at this time. You’d be better off waiting at home for news.’

  Outside the sky had fallen into shades of grey and a crescent moon hung over the leisure centre opposite the station. I watched as a family came tumbling out of the revolving door in a mass of love and laughter, hair damp from swimming, a small boy about Ben’s age carrying a striped inflatable ball. They were all munching on Mars bars, and my stomach growled in response. From behind his plastic enclosure the desk sergeant scraped back his chair, disappeared from view, reappearing in reception a few minutes later. Disappointment plastered Mum’s face as she realised he didn’t have Dad with him; instead he carried two plastic cups of hot chocolate which he handed to me and Ben. Powder clumped on the surface and it tasted artificially sweet, not like chocolate at all, but I gulped it down gratefully. That was my birthday tea. That small kindness was soon washed away by the realisation Dad wasn’t comin
g home, then, or ever and it all got muddled in my twelve-year-old mind until I held the police partly responsible for fracturing my family. It was easier than believing it was all Dad.

  As I wait for PC Willis to come and collect me for our ‘chat’ I pace back and forth like a caged lion, unable to settle and, once I am fetched and shown into a small, windowless room, I wish I hadn’t come. There’s almost a finality in the way the door slams shut behind me.

  ‘Hello, Alison.’ I don’t recognise PC Hunter from yesterday but his cold, clipped, tone is chillingly familiar.

  ‘Have you tested the gloves?’ I can’t help blurting out. They must have called me in for a specific reason and I can’t think what else it would be.

  ‘Yes, we sent them to the lab and the results were pinged back immediately, just like you see on TV. No waiting around for the budget to be approved or for the backlog to be cleared. We wrap up every case in an hour, less the time for ad breaks.’ His sarcasm stings me into silence.

  ‘We’re going to be recording this interview. Is that all right with you?’ He is already fiddling with buttons.

  ‘I’m not under arrest, am I?’

  ‘Not unless there’s anything you want to tell us?’ His eyes meet mine, and I look away quickly, scared he’ll see my panic.

  He barks the date and time and introduces himself and PC Willis before asking me to state my name.

  ‘Alison Taylor.’

  ‘And that’s your legal name, is it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s my married name…’ I trail off. That isn’t what he meant.

  He knows about Dad.

  Pressure begins to build in my head but instead of questioning me further he asks me to tell him more about my friendship with Chrissy.

  ‘I met her about six months ago, in the gym.’ I’d been nearing the end of my workout, swiping my cardio-damp fringe away from my face. Trying to summon up the energy to drag my weary body around one last circuit. Picturing my thighs in denim shorts. Wrapped around Matt. Overriding those images, though, had been the thought of the home-made fruit cake in the café downstairs, kidding myself it was one of my five a day.

  ‘You look like I feel.’ Chrissy had been sipping from a polystyrene cone filled with water from the cooler.

  ‘Knackered?’

  ‘Yes, although some of the sights in here don’t exactly inspire me to keep going.’ Her eyebrows arched as she raised her eyebrows and nodded in the direction of a huge man, dripping with sweat. He’d grunted as he hefted a dumbbell over his head again, his top had ridden up, displaying a thick carpet of black hair coating his back; in the mirror his stomach hung over the waistband of his shorts.

  ‘Are you single?’

  ‘Divorced,’ she had told me. ‘And new to the area. Do you fancy getting a coffee? Is that weird? I don’t know anyone else here.’

  ‘Throw in a cake and I’m there.’

  ‘We got on really well.’ I direct my response to PC Willis, trying to block out the soft whirring of the machine recording my every answer. ‘She’d moved for a fresh start after her marriage broke down.’

  ‘Because she had an affair?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose.’ It’s uncomfortable discussing the morality of someone who isn’t here to defend themselves.

  ‘And you found her a job?’

  It’s frustrating they are asking questions they clearly know the answer to, but I nod all the same.

  ‘If you could speak out loud for the benefit of the tape.’

  I lick my dry lips. ‘Yes. She was working in a pub but didn’t like the late hours, and I knew a vacancy had come up in the shop Jules worked in and I recommended her.’

  ‘And how did she get on with Jules?’

  ‘Okay. Chrissy was always more my friend but the three of us did things together.’

  ‘Did?’

  ‘Do.’ My throat tightens and I force down cooling water. ‘We do things together.’

  ‘There’s a post on Chrissy’s Facebook page, the last post she made, saying “There comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for someone who wouldn’t even jump in puddles for you”. Have you seen this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ I’m analysing every word I say, my tone, my body language. I cross and uncross my arms trying to appear casual, but two wet patches have formed under my arms and I keep my elbows tucked into my sides so they can’t be seen.

  ‘You and Chrissy aren’t Facebook friends.’

  ‘No. Not anymore and I don’t know why,’ I interject before they can ask.

  ‘She must have posted that after you left Prism? Did you have an argument there?’

  ‘No.’ My hands on her shoulders. Pushing. ‘Are you going to check the CCTV?’ I fight to keep my voice level.

  ‘That would be rather difficult considering Prism burned down last night.’

  My head jerks up as though I’ve been kicked in the spine and I make eye contact for the first time.

  ‘Burned down?’

  ‘Yes. Very coincidental, wouldn’t you say? Early reports indicate that it’s arson. Where were you last night, Mrs Taylor, between the hours of midnight and 1 a.m.?’ Again, he’s stopped calling me Alison.

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘With Branwell.’

  ‘And Branwell is?’

  ‘My dog.’

  ‘He can’t exactly provide you with an alibi then, can he?’

  I swallow the last of the water to wash down my humiliation.

  ‘We just want to find Chrissy, Alison. You must be worried sick. Is there anything you can tell us about that night?’

  I grasp gratefully at the sympathy in PC Willis’s voice, but release it quickly remembering every crime drama I’ve watched. No matter how scathing PC Hunter is of TV depictions I’m sure good cop, bad cop is a thing. Stress buzzes in my ears. Mentally I run through how it would sound if I told them about Ewan, even though there is no proof without the CCTV that he exists other than the messages he sent me from a non-existent dating profile. If I told them about the shoes I left by the seafront, the note with the gloves Branwell ate, the flowers I threw away, would it sound as though I was fabricating the whole thing? And yet, if there is anything I can do to help find Chrissy, I know I must. I am drawing in a deep breath, ready to tell them everything, when PC Hunter says, casually, as he’s scribbling notes. Too casually.

  ‘What happened to your car?’

  ‘My car?’ I can’t help repeating.

  ‘You had a new bumper fitted recently? Hit something?’

  Someone.

  ‘Look. Am I being accused of something here?’ My voice is defensive. Big and brave and everything I am not. ‘Do I need a solicitor?’ I bite down hard on my lip to stop myself from crying. God knows what they’ll find if they come back to the house to do a more thorough search. I flashback to me in my bathroom washing the blood from my hands the morning after the date. There must still be minute traces invisible to the naked eye around the basin. Whose blood is it?

  ‘If you want to seek legal advice that is entirely your prerogative. We’re just trying to piece together Chrissy’s last known movements. And you’re the obvious place to start considering your connection.’

  ‘Just because we live together doesn’t mean I know where she is.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about that connection.’

  PC Willis and PC Hunter exchange a look I cannot read but there’s a heaviness hanging over this cheap plastic table, with its wonky leg and coffee stains, that wasn’t here before.

  ‘You must know.’ I am asked.

  I shake my head, at a loss, no longer caring about recording my responses for the tape.

  ‘Chrissy’s maiden name was Marlow.’

  I am being watched. I am being studied. I am hooked up to an electric chair with a current running through my body as I squirm and sweat and try to deny what is happening to me.

  Chr
issy Young is Christine Marlow. The daughter of Sharon Marlow. The woman that was killed in the robbery Dad took part in.

  Pressure around my neck.

  Shouting. Screaming. Chrissy’s furious face.

  Me pushing.

  Fingers squeezing my throat.

  A noose.

  The knot pulling tighter and tighter.

  38

  Icy tentacles squeeze my stomach as I stumble out of the police station.

  ‘Stay in the area.’ PC Hunter had snapped off the tape recorder before scraping back his chair, draining the last of his coffee, which must have been as cold as his demeanour.

  As I drive home I constantly release one hand from the steering wheel, brushing at the opposite arm, my skin itching with the sensation of insects scurrying over me. The crawling sensation of suspicion and deceit. I feel tainted, somehow even more than that night. My mind is scrabbling around for answers and I drive fast, too fast, along the curves that hug the clifftops where Mum, Ben and I would picnic. Where Matt proposed. But the places I don’t want to visit are not only physical. They are buried in a box deep inside my mind, and I need to find the key to unlock them.

  Christine Marlow.

  Did she know who I was when she approached me at the gym? Years ago, the welfare officer who’d been assigned to support me and Ben told Mum she believed in the Carl Jung theory that there are no such things as coincidence, aligning everything to synchronicity instead. Now, I think she was trying her best to alleviate us of our burden of guilt, however ham-fistedly, but Mum had raged, a ball of anger and bitterness and regret.

  ‘So she was meant to die, that poor woman?’ Mum had spat. ‘Leaving two kiddies without a mother.’

  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Get out! You’re not helping, none of you are helping.’ And that was when she’d pulled us out of school. Decided that no amount of counselling or educating could allow us to blend into our neighbourhood once more, like the newsagents on the corner of the street, or the red postbox beneath the cherry tree. We’d always stand out like the juice and sushi bar that slid in-between the fish and chip shop and the Indian. Awkward and out of place.