The Keeper

by Jessica Moor

  ‘We’ll go into the key-work room for some privacy,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Detective Brookes, I would be very grateful if you stay only in this room. No wandering about.’

  Her fingertips were twitching nervously on her set of keys. Her eyes darted about, checking locked file cabinets, computers, empty desk tops.

  ‘I can vouch for DC Brookes,’ Whitworth said.

  Val Redwood still looked reluctant, but she nodded.

  She led Whitworth out of the office and closed the door sharply, before producing yet another key and turning down the labyrinthine passage.

  5.

  A door slammed. A voice called out: ‘It’s Val. Just letting you all know that I’ve got two male police officers with me.’

  The shout was thin, interrupting the denser silence that had lain over the refuge since last night, when Val had sat them all down and told them that Katie was dead and that no one knew why.

  If Nazia had learned anything at all since she arrived here, it was that watching TV was the appropriate response to pretty much everything. It flattened life out, dimmed down the urgency. Katie was dead. Morse was on.

  The two facts just . . . coexisted.

  ‘I’ve seen this one before,’ she said, frowning at the screen.

  Nazia recognized the blue waterproof jacket, the large, scared eyes, the brown nineties lipstick – why were they showing such old telly? The woman onscreen might as well have had ‘victim’ rubber-stamped on her forehead.

  Nazia pointed.

  ‘He did it.’

  ‘’Course he did,’ Sonia said. ‘It’s always the boyfriend, right?’

  Nazia turned to look at Sonia. Her coily hair had been relaxed and was pulled off her face. It made her look very different. Like she was being held together even more tightly than usual.

  ‘Not always,’ Nazia replied.

  ‘Husband, then.’

  Nazia could hear minuscule noises of irritation coming from Lynne. There were two types of families, Nazia thought. The type that talks over the TV and the type that doesn’t. Clearly, Lynne had grown up in the second type.

  The woman onscreen was walking through a car park, looking around frantically. Sonia turned up the volume a couple of bars and leaned forward, as if studying the TV for clues on what not to do next.

  ‘Silly cow. Why would you walk around there by yourself?’

  ‘I’ve seen this one before,’ Nazia said again. Everything here needed to be repeated endlessly, as cyclical and as thankless as a load of laundry.

  ‘Don’t spoil it.’

  Nazia turned to look at Angie. She didn’t tend to speak to the older woman. It wasn’t that she knew for a fact that Angie was racist, but it seemed like a fair assumption, considering her age and background, and Nazia wasn’t interested in doing outreach work to someone who probably thought she was a terrorist. Or rather, that she did a terrorist’s laundry. Besides, there was nothing odd in their lack of conversation. Acknowledging each other would have been an acknowledgement that they both belonged there, and no one thinks they belong in the madhouse.

  ‘What’s to spoil?’

  Jenny rarely spoke, to the point that Nazia wasn’t sure that she shared a language with the rest of them. Maybe she didn’t. Weren’t hookers often from Romania, and places like that?

  But Jenny did sound English. It was just that when she spoke the things she said made no sense. You couldn’t make a pattern out of her. You couldn’t see where her thoughts were going or where she’d got them from.

  Christ knew what she was doing here. But Val had some funny ideas.

  Since the day she had come to the refuge, Nazia had been doing her best not to stare at Jenny. The harsh lines of her face seemed to demand attention; the heroin had evaporated all her surplus flesh and left only eyes and bones.

  This morning, Nazia just let herself look.

  Jenny’s eyes were red. She was the only one who had cried last night when Val told them that Katie was dead.

  Maybe Nazia should have known intuitively that something was wrong. She’d been due to meet Katie on Friday morning and make a start on a benefits application. When Katie hadn’t turned up, she’d sat in the office alone, angry, tired, bored.

  After an hour of waiting Val had called, and Katie had stopped being late and started being missing. And now she was dead.

  Nazia felt guilty that she hadn’t cried, but the list of things to cry about had just become too long, and now didn’t seem like the time to make a start. She’d prayed, though, for the first time since she’d got to this place. She hadn’t seen that one coming.

  Nazia guessed that Sonia would rather die than show weakness by crying, and Angie probably thought crying was too much like attention-seeking.

  But Nazia would have expected Lynne to be the one to cry. Not Jenny.

  Jenny had sobbed late into the night. You could hear everything in this building. The large, high-ceilinged Victorian rooms had been divided up with cheap plasterboard partitions that leaked every sigh and bedspring squeak and private phone call.

  ‘So . . . these police officers . . .’

  Nazia’s eyes swivelled back to the screen, but Lynne was clearly far too nervous to pretend to be watching any more.

  ‘I suppose they’re here about Katie’s death?’

  Some people looked angry or surly when they were scared, but Lynne looked exactly the way you were supposed to – pretty, helpless. White-white skin, huge blue eyes, blonde hair that seemed to glow even when it was unwashed and hung limply around her face. The tension in her frame made her look even smaller and thinner than usual.

  Clearly, Val’s call had scared her.

  You couldn’t let Val wind you up too much. That was something else Nazia had quickly picked up on. Nazia quite liked Val, with her liberal swearing and strong cups of tea, and the mixture of wariness and unconditional love that she poured on to every woman who walked through the refuge door. But she definitely got too wound up about things.

  ‘That’ll be it, I expect,’ Angie said. Angie never looked wound up. Her face seemed permanently stuck in a placid expression.

  Nazia went back to pretending not to look at Jenny.

  ‘Can’t be dealing with this shite,’ Jenny muttered. She glanced at Nazia, who immediately had the sick, flooded feeling of having been caught.

  ‘It’s all shite,’ Jenny said again. ‘I can’t be dealing with this. I want a quiet life.’

  Nazia nodded. ‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘A quiet life sounds good.’

  ‘Can’t we watch something else?’

  Now it was Lynne who spoke up again.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This doesn’t feel . . . appropriate.’

  ‘What’s appropriate?’ Jenny said blankly.

  Lynne folded her drapey cardigan across her thin body. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘What’s appropriate?’ Jenny said again, louder this time. ‘What’s appropriate, eh?’

  ‘Let it go, Jenny,’ Angie advised softly.

  ‘Someone’s died,’ Lynne hissed.

  ‘Not someone.’

  Nazia knew she shouldn’t have spoken. She shouldn’t be combative – that was the word her dad had always used, chopping it up into its component parts – com-bat-ive. But she couldn’t help it sometimes.

  ‘Not someone. Katie.’

  * * *

  • • •

  You’ve got to name it, Nazia. That way, it isn’t in control of you any more.

  I don’t think that works.

  Try it.

  Sabbir.

  Who is he?

  He’s my brother. My little brother.

  What happened?

  * * *

  • • •

  It was easier to say nothing, to watch the television, to sink into the fa
ke-leather sofa and let the hot air pull you into sleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was Katie who had brought Nazia into the refuge.

  No. That wasn’t true. Nazia had brought herself there. But Katie had been the voice on the other end of the phone who took her referral, who told her to get herself north.

  To fucking Widringham. As if anyone knew where that was.

  Meet me by the pillar box.

  It was like an impending marriage. The sense of promise, the shy looks, the silent agreement to make a go of living together.

  Funny, then, that this was how it had all started. A photograph presented to Nazia by her mother with a wide smile, like it was the best of birthday presents.

  A sweet-faced boy. Just a suggestion, her parents had been clear. It was her choice, and always would be. But parents do know their kids so well.

  She had imagined that gentle face smiling out at her every morning when she woke up, marking out the moment that she’d have to start pretending. If her parents could only find the perfect girl for her, she would have wanted those same large, bright eyes.

  She’d told her mum that she wanted to think about it, and no more was said. For a while.

  The young woman walking towards Nazia as she shivered on the Widringham street had a thick fringe. Brown eyes. She stretched out her hand to Nazia.

  ‘Hi, Nazia. I’m Katie. We spoke on the phone.’

  The voice was familiar. It had been the final voice in a long chain of voices on the other end of a borrowed phone, in a series of frantic calls made from the toilet of her hospital ward.

  The phone had been borrowed from a nurse, who had spoken to her parents in polite Sylheti, and then, when they left, she’d shoved her phone into Nazia’s hand.

  ‘You need to get out,’ the nurse had said.

  ‘No police,’ Nazia mumbled. ‘No way.’

  ‘Of course not. Not if that’s not what you want. Look. Call this number. They can help you. Go on.’

  For a few seconds Nazia just stayed where she was. She could go home, like her dad had said.

  ‘He shouldn’t have been so aggressive.’

  Nazia’s father said the words in his soft voice. He was ballooning in and out of focus with the flow of the morphine.

  Aggressive. That was one of the words he used on Nazia when he was trying to get her to back down. Don’t be aggressive.

  She couldn’t be angry with him for that. It was a policy that had served him well since he came to this country and it had done its best to shrug him back out. His words made her feel alone, ashamed.

  ‘When you come home we can forget all about it,’ he said.

  There was no guarantee that Sabbir would ever lay a finger on her again.

  But there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t.

  And, Nazia had realized, as she lay there with the phone in her hand, a grim smile tugging at the side of her mouth, that just wasn’t fucking good enough.

  So Nazia had made the call, and now here she was, and there was no point in asking herself whether she’d done the right thing.

  She took Katie’s hand and wanted to hang on to it. She wanted to let this girl lead her somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere she wouldn’t have to start pretending from the moment before she woke up.

  Katie said some stuff about Nazia’s journey, and about the front door and the security of the building. Then she led her into a house and up some stairs – cream walls, a cheap carpet that was either brown or navy – and down a hall. Doors with numbers on them.

  Somewhere in the house a toddler was having a tantrum.

  Nazia grasped reflexively at the empty air where a suitcase ought to have been.

  Katie opened a door. The room was beige. Grey. Pale blue. A swirl of indistinct colours. There was a single bed and a chest of drawers, both from Ikea. She recognized them from everywhere.

  ‘You’ve got your own bathroom,’ Katie said. As if to prove it, she crossed the room and pulled a cord to illuminate a small wet room with a shower head that flopped down from its fixture.

  ‘The knob needs a bit of a jiggle to get going. You’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure. Let me know if you have any problems.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘We’ve got some stuff ready for you,’ Katie said, gesturing down at a pile of bottles and toiletries on the bed. ‘I’m guessing you’ve got no clothes?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Nazia’s black jeans, sweater and scarf suddenly seemed terrifyingly insubstantial, as if she might as well be naked.

  ‘That’s fine. We’ve got some spare packs of knickers and PJs down in the office. Come find me there when you’re settled and we’ll sort some out for you. And we’ve got vouchers for clothes. Hope you don’t mind Next.’

  ‘Great,’ Nazia said.

  ‘Do you need any more scarves? Or’ – Katie looked like she might have been embarrassed, if she’d given herself the chance – ‘like, a prayer mat or anything?’

  Nazia shook her head.

  ‘I don’t pray,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, right. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Nazia hadn’t been trying to make any particular point with her answer. It wasn’t some big renunciation, she’d just never been the praying type. But she’d said it out loud because she wanted to taste the truth on her tongue for a second, just to see what it was like.

  ‘Okay. I’ll let you get settled, then.’

  Nazia didn’t know what she was supposed to do to settle in. She didn’t have any bags to unpack, so she just picked up the tube of toothpaste from the bed and stood there in silence, holding it in her hand.

  ‘Nazia?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I . . . I just want to let you know that you’re safe here.’

  Nazia twisted the cuffs of her sweatshirt over her hands.

  ‘I don’t feel safe,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll work on that.’

  * * *

  • • •

  The next day Nazia had gone to the barber’s with her last twenty quid in her pocket and had what was left of her hair cut off.

  She’d googled the word ‘lesbian’ and waded through the pictures of skinny white girls with long hair kissing on beaches.

  It took a few minutes for her to find what she needed. A face free of makeup, glaring out at the world. Cropped hair, like a boy’s. This woman was white too, of course. You couldn’t have everything.

  Nazia printed out the picture from the office printer.

  Katie hadn’t said anything about it the next time they met. It took her a couple of weeks to say, very shyly, ‘I love your haircut.’

  * * *

  • • •

  It was the ad break, but Nazia was still staring determinedly at the screen. Small claims. Centerparcs. Mobility scooters.

  Sonia and the others had drifted away. It was just Nazia and Jenny on the sofa together.

  The two of them never really talked. She’d always figured that Jenny would expect her to talk with an Apu accent. Nazia, for her part, could barely manage to say hello to Jenny without imagining the street corners, the ugly men, the purr of a car slowing down. The bones like a chicken carcass, the papery skin, the spiky pubic hair.

  Nazia had to say something, just to release the pressure valve.

  ‘Are you feeling any better?’

  ‘Better than what?’ Jenny looked blank.

  ‘You seemed upset. Last night. You were crying.’

  ‘Wasn’t crying.’ Jenny’s voice was too casual.

  ‘I thought I heard . . .’

  ‘Nah, babe. Just rattling a bit. It happens, you know.’

  Nazia didn’t know, but she nodded.

  ‘If you ever want to talk about –’

  ‘Everyon
e always wants to talk,’ Jenny interrupted, rolling her eyes. It made Nazia feel dizzy. ‘Talkers and cuddlers, they’re the worst. We don’t need that, do we, babe?’

  She laughed. Then she hooked an arm around Nazia’s shoulders and pulled her in for a jarring half-hug. She smelled of cigarettes and Dove. Her body was tightly still, like a frozen animal.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me,’ Jenny said. ‘I was rattling, like I said, but my prescription’s all sorted now. Got my medication now. Doing great. You’re sweet, though. Sweet of you to worry about me.’

  ‘I thought maybe you were upset about Katie.’

  Jenny seemed to desiccate slightly.

  ‘Well, it’s fucking horrible, what happens to people.’

  She looked at Nazia. ‘Nothing you can do, though. That’s what you learn.’

  ‘Do you think Katie killed herself?’ Nazia hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but it seemed like the only question worth asking.

  Jenny snorted.

  ‘’Course she fucking didn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Nazia knew that Jenny was only twenty-five – six years older than her – but she looked closer to a bad forty. It must be the drugs and the hard living. But she looked like she knew things. Surely she’d understand why people died.

  Jenny shrugged and turned the volume too high on the TV.

  ‘It’s what they want you to think, isn’t it?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Always a cover-up. Goes all the way up. Right the way up to the top, I reckon.’

  She’s paranoid. She can’t help it.

  But Nazia couldn’t help it either.

  ‘Why do you think that about Katie though?’

  ‘This and that.’ Jenny shifted and started to chew on her thumbnail. ‘She just wasn’t the type,’ she said. ‘You know the type when you see it. The type that kills themselves. It’s obvious.’

  Was it obvious? For some people, what happened with Sabbir would have been obvious. Obvious that a brown boy would beat up his brown sister and nearly kill her.