No, he says. Touching the suddenly foreign-feeling skin of his cheeks, face, eyes, with his hands (the hands that already feel cut off from him, like the hands of another person), No, please God no—
The words make little sense though he understands every one of them. Your wife. Has suffered. Some sort of violent attack. Has not survived.
Has not. Suffered. Violent. In a different order, the words might not spell the end. No, says Al. Please God no—he says it again several times.
One of them puts a hand on his arm and Alex lets him, even though he doesn’t like being touched by strangers and especially not by men.
He asks if they could light him another cigarette. The younger one grabs the pack while the older one—Mawhinney—keeps his hand on him. And though he can barely take the cigarette when it is held out to him, so badly are his hands shaking, still he somehow manages to smoke it in long, trembling gasps.
* * *
Mick comes by with the dog and the kids. Everyone shouting, leaves lifting, trees bent over by the wind. The sky is white. Jordan has no coat on, just his frayed school jumper.
I ask him where his zip-up fleece is and he shrugs in a shivery way. Mick thinks I fuss too much but I hate the idea of my kids being cold. Jordan is nine, a year older than Connor, but just as thin. All our boys, Lennie’s and mine, are thin. Rosa and Liv, on the other hand, are padded and rounded—big girls with a layer between them and the world.
Look at him, I say to Mick. He’s freezing.
Mick stares at me and doesn’t seem to take in what I say.
He is, I say. He’s shivering.
Yesterday was warm for October, but not last night and not today. Here at Lennie’s, even with the gas fire on it’s not enough. I’ve just turned the heating right up.
Fletcher is pulling and jumping and trying to get the lead in his mouth. It’s what he does. Mick loops the lead over the gatepost and yells at him to sit and stay. Louder than usual. The dog looks upset and sits and then straightaway gets up again, happy, expectant.
There was no bread! Rosa bursts out. For the packed lunches!
That’s enough, Rosa, Mick tells her.
I was only saying—
Shut up, he says.
Rosa scowls.
I mean it, he says. Do I have to say it again?
I tell Rosa to shush. The sun shoots out and sends a wet, piercing light up over the brownish lawn, the path, the bins.
Mick—I say, but he doesn’t look at me.
I’m taking Max and Con to their gran’s, he says.
OK.
Suddenly Max is there at Mick’s elbow. What? Aren’t we going to school then?
That’s right, boy, says Mick. He touches Max gently on the arm, but looks down at his keys.
Why? says Max. What’s going on? Where’s Dad?
Why is he missing school? Are we all missing it? Jordan asks quickly.
No, says Mick, Not you. Look, you lot—
Why not? asks Nat immediately.
What? Oh great, snaps Rosa. So they get to miss school and we don’t?
She folds her arms and looks horrid.
Mick turns and fixes her with a terrible stare and her eyes turn furious.
Just give me a reason why that’s fair, she demands.
You shut up right now or I’ll give you more than that, says Mick.
Watched by all of us, Rosa bursts out crying. Mick looks like he’s about to hit her but he doesn’t. He does nothing. Lets his hands drop to his sides. Rosa thinks she’s won.
Happy now? she asks him through her tears.
Mick and I look at each other.
What’s going on? I ask him.
He says nothing.
You better tell me, Mick, I say.
He touches his face.
Come on, let’s go inside, he says.
The bin men find her. The dawn refuse collection. Pitch dark at first, then grey sea, bleached early morning sky. Seagulls wheeling and squealing and hanging, steadying themselves in the air over the same piece of ground.
She is lying on her front, one arm under her, the other thrown out, concealing the worst of her injuries. That’s what we are told. That she is still wearing her red satin shirt and cardigan but her jeans and pants have been pulled right off one leg and caught around her right ankle. That though there is no sign of her having been assaulted, her sanitary pad, with its modest brown smear of blood, is lying there on the concrete next to her.
My knees feel weak as water. All the muscles that normally hold me up have lost their zip, their strength. Mick tells the children to wait in the garden. He knows they won’t venture out of the little wooden gate. Somehow we walk together over the hall mat, him ahead, him taking me. Our feet slip a little, moving over paper—letters that have come for Alex and Lennie. We don’t pick them up.
What? I ask him. Mick, please tell me, what?
I can smell his body, the worry on him, the heat. His face is dark with whatever it is.
He pushes me into the sitting room and shuts the door.
I think I say please. Or tell me. That’s what I say: Tell me, Mick. As if it was that easy.
And my teeth are shivering in my head, like I’m so cold I can’t hold my jaw still, which is silly really. And even the ends of my fingers have gone hot and fizzy. I’m afraid.
He takes my hand. His own fingers are cool.
At first they think (or hope) she might be drunk or asleep—though, even at the height of the season, drunks, and especially ones with their underpants ripped off, are unheard of in this place. Then they see that the visible arm is too long and all splayed out at the wrong angle. And in the same moment they realise that the dark puddle in which she lies half submerged isn’t mud as they thought, but blood.
One of the men dials 999 on his mobile.
There’s normally a very small, half-hearted police presence in the town, but it doesn’t wait around for murders to happen. Several more cars and an ambulance are summoned at once from Wrentham and Halesworth. Within twenty minutes there are sirens, winking lights, crackling radios, as police park diagonally to block the road and then proceed to tape off the car park and the adjoining areas. The electric milk van is stopped and told to go back round the other way, along North Road. The tide turns. A series of black groynes point up like fingers at the sky.
After perhaps half an hour, a small yellow and white tent is erected. It flaps about in the early morning wind that comes off the sea. Yellow tape is strung between the posts of the car park. No one is allowed to cross it—only one or two police are let through and even they have to be cleared by the grey-haired man in a white jacket who arrived ten minutes earlier, looking tired-out and carrying a small nylon bag.
Paramedics stand around. Grim faces. Confusion. What are they waiting for? Is someone just injured or are they dead? At last a police officer walks briskly forward, head down, talking into his radio. They immediately let him through the tape. His breath is a cold cloud and he looks at no one.
He pulls a coat on over his neon jacket, which glints oddly in the bright sea light. He is followed by two policewomen, one of them frowning hard and carrying something small and heavy. The wind blows the clouds apart and everything is lit up and sparkly-yellow in that split second. Far out to sea is a perfect little boat with a brown sail. You can tell the wind is strong because of how the boat scuds along. Eager and fast. It looks like it’s going to be a lovely day. That’s what it’s like the morning they find Lennie—everyone says that, everyone remembers it. An especially lovely day for the time of year.
Someone has died. The whisper goes around. A woman’s body has been found—attacked and left for—yes, a female, someone from here—no one knows who. No, they haven’t said. Yes, dead.
No one says murdered, not yet, not then.
A good soul from one of the B. & B.s on North Parade appears with several mugs of tea—by which time a crowd of dog walkers and delivery people and shopworkers has gathered.
A couple of chambermaids from The Angel, shivering in their black. People speak quietly to one another. Someone’s mobile phone starting up and the culprit walking away, guilty, to answer it.
Meanwhile, three or four hefty gulls alight on the concrete wall by the bins—in case such an improbably sudden crowd means food.
Oh Tess, he says.
Have they found her? Even as I speak the words, something in my throat settles and hardens and the answer bubbles up.
Yes, he says, they have.
I wait and then whisper, And—?
I’m afraid they have, he says again.
It’s—bad?
He takes a breath. There’s sweat on his face, and on mine.
I think she’s dead, he says. He takes a breath, corrects himself, No. I mean—she is—oh Tess—she is dead.
Dead. Lennie is dead. The air around my head blooms into a massive, soft silence. Everything stops and my ears are velvety with it.
Tess?
I am about to answer him but instead the floor comes zooming up to meet my face.
It’s OK, I can hear him saying, it’s OK.
With my head between my knees and him holding me, I breathe. Big, hurting breaths, in and out. Down there in that other world, I notice things—the bare patches on Lennie’s blue carpet, the crumbs and dust bunnies beneath the edge of the sofa. Two rubber bands. A piece of Lego and next to it something sticky, dulled with fluff, a spat-out fruit gum perhaps.
Deep breaths, Mick says and him saying it reminds me of us in labour, having our babies. The most together we have ever been. Except that right now this moment I have no memory whatever of having Liv.
How? I ask him, and he tells me. He tells me what has been done to Lennie. After a few moments, he asks me if I am OK. He asks even though he knows the answer. It’s not his fault. It’s only because he loves me.
And outside the wind has dropped and the kids are all standing just as we left them. Such good children—so quiet, all of them, no one touching or nudging anyone else, not a cry or complaint or a yowl of anger from anyone. You would not know there were five children huddled out there on the damp porch step.
Chapter 3
MICK DROPS OUR KIDS AT SCHOOL AND THEN DRIVES Max and Con on to Alex’s mother Patsy in Halesworth. Alex has already told Patsy. She knows. She says she’ll have the boys as long as necessary. No one knows how long Alex’ll have to spend with the police.
Mick asks Patsy if she’s sure she’ll be OK? She tells him she’s fine. She’s taken 4 mg of valium on her GP’s advice and a neighbour has come in to be with her.
Have a drink, Mick says to me, have a stiff drink.
I stare at him.
I’m OK.
Go on, he says. I mean it—you’ll feel better.
Have you? I ask him.
I’m driving.
I’m OK, I tell him again.
What are you going to do?
I don’t know. Tidy up here then come home.
You’ll walk?
Yes.
I watch the children pile into the car, oblivious and ordinary, hands and feet scuffing, shoving their rucksacks in the back, getting Fletcher to jump in afterwards.
We’ve told them nothing, Alex will do it, he should be the one. For a moment or two all I see is their small white faces in the back window. And Connor especially—smiling, tilting his head back in a naughty-happy way, looking just like Lennie.
The air around Liv’s head smells of milk. Her mouth is open, one small fist pushed up hard against her cheek. I know that if I were to pry it open I’d find sweat, fluff and grit from where she lay on the blanket on the floor. I stay for a moment, just looking. Checking. I always do that with my kids. Check them. I even still do it to Nat, yes even now, even though I can tell from the strange, large, folded-up shape of him that these days it’s a pretty redundant thing to do.
After I’ve looked at her, I put away the cereal packets and rinse the bowls in the sink—then put on Lennie’s rubber gloves and rinse the sink as well, swishing it around with my fingers. Next to the sink is Lennie’s hand cream, the pump-head clogged with greasy pinkness where she’s used it. A sparkly hair clip that she wore recently—when? why don’t I remember?—with two of the sparkly bits come off.
The phone rings. I jump. It’s only Mick.
Tess, he says, you’re to get out of there. They’re going to seal it off. You’re not to put your fingerprints on anything else—a forensics guy is coming over any minute now.
Tears come to the back of my throat.
But—if I’m not here—how’ll he get in?
He has a key. Tess, I mean it—just leave. Now. That’s what they said. They don’t want fingerprints everywhere. Just get out. Just pull the door behind you and come home.
You’ve already dropped the kids?
Yes. I thought you’d be back. Shall I come over and get you?
I try to understand how much time has gone since Mick left. More than I think. Shock pulls everything tight around you.
No, I tell him, I’m coming. I’m coming now.
We live about a four-minute walk from Lennie and Al. Down Spinner’s Lane, across the Green and up Victoria Street to the row of little cobble-fronted cottages by the church. To get there you pass the doctor’s surgery, Pratt’s newsagent’s and an Antiques & Curios shop that belongs to Margie Pinnerman but is hardly ever open. The rest is residential—silent, pebble-dashed semis and then the older, more desirable cottages with names like Sailor’s Stash and Ebb Tide. More like a bunch of racehorses, Mick remarked when he first saw the names painted on their proud little plinky-planky china plaques.
Our street is quite different from Lennie and Al’s. The cottages in Spinner’s Lane have larger gardens and uglier fronts and look out over the marshes. But ours have white-painted walls with ragged hollyhocks bursting out over the tops and through the cracks. Our gardens are more like yards—just enough room for a bike perhaps and a row of washing—but inside our houses are bigger than they look, and from our tiny bathroom windows you can see the sea.
It ought to be easy. To go and get my coat, my little, sleeping baby, creep out, close the door behind me. But the cats—Lennie’s two angry tabbies—circle me, mewing loudly. I don’t like cats, something Lennie will never understand. She can’t understand that a person could be afraid of a small furry thing.
But I know where she keeps the food so I get it from the shelf by the back door and pour some onto a plate, make a kissing noise with my lips like she does.
And they come, slowly, tails stuck up in the air. The one with the white patch on its face looks at the food, then back at me, disgust on his dreamy cat face. Then they both sit back and start washing.
The moments fall away and whole seconds go by before I notice that a man is in the room. A stranger, a man, about thirty years old with lots of darkish hair and an odd, quiet face. Standing there and looking at me.
My heart clenches and then dips.
Oh!
Sorry, he says quickly, I really am so sorry.
He says it but he’s almost smiling. I am grabbing at the edge of the counter, hot and trembling.
I didn’t mean to make you jump. I should have knocked. It’s just—
I say nothing.
The door was open, he says, looking more helpless now. And I was told the house was empty.
I’m—it is. I’m going, I tell him.
Oh look, don’t feel you have to—he says, but he’s looking all around him at the room. Which already isn’t Lennie’s room.
Are you police? I ask him, because he doesn’t look like it.
That’s right. Sorry.
He nods.
You’re the forensics guy?
I’m Ted Lacey, he says, I’m—I’m called family liaison. I’m here to—
I fold my arms tight against me in case he tries to shake my hand.
I’m with the police, he begins again, but I deal with—
The family.
Right, he says quietly, keeping his eyes on me. Yes.
Tess, I say, I’m Tess. A friend of—
He blinks.
Yes, he says. Yes. I know that.
And he just stands there.
Are you OK? he says at last.
I’m fine, thanks.
He looks at me.
Is that your job? I ask him. To ask if I’m OK?
No, he says and shrugs, looks away.
I smile. I don’t know why.
Look—he begins, then stops.
I daren’t look at him. He’s so young. Something about him makes the room tilt.
Maybe I look dizzy.
Why don’t you sit down? he says.
No, I tell him, I’m fine. I just need a cigarette.
He watches as I pull open Lennie’s kitchen drawer.
She has a secret supply, I tell him without knowing why, of cigarettes.
He says nothing.
I find them quickly, hidden between the clingfilm and the roll of sandwich bags. Also, a pink plastic lighter with the Virgin Mary on. A present from Barcelona, it says.
We did give up, I tell him. At New Year.
Oh, he says.
But we keep them here. Just in case.
He looks at me and the way he does it makes me feel funny.
I’m going home, I tell him. Now. In a minute.
OK.
It’s just, I tell him, my husband wouldn’t want me smoking.
He looks down at the floor. I see how shiny his shoes are. Definitely not from around here. I offer him the pack. He shakes his head. He hasn’t moved.
I flick the lighter and the flame whooshes up too high over the Virgin’s head and then goes off.
Shit.
I drop it. The cigarette too.
Fuck.
He reaches forward, bends down, picks them up for me. I look into his hair, which is black as anything and dense and shiny.
He watches me fumble all over again with the lighter. Shall I do it? he says at last.
OK then.
I put the cigarette between my lips and pull back my hair which is falling everywhere and he lights it for me. I suck it quickly in and let it hit me hard all over before I weep.
Something Might Happen Page 3
