by Louise Beech
Is that your instinct? she wanted to know.
I said yes, it was what my gut told me would happen.
Mine tells me the opposite, she said. And I have to go with that.
What could I say?
Vicky said she didn’t care who disagreed. Whether her mother thought it was foolish, or if I did. She was going to Tom’s house tonight to tell him she still loved him, that she always had, and she wanted the three of them to be a family. She said she had been asking around about him; and a friend had said his girlfriend was some radio presenter and worked evenings, so hopefully she wouldn’t be around.
I don’t want to hurt her, Vicky said to me. I really don’t.
Then don’t go, I said.
I have to, she whispered.
I looked out of the window. It had begun to rain. The water was making the crisp leaves soggy. The waitress took our plates away. The bread was heavy in my stomach.
This is it, isn’t it? I said.
Vicky frowned.
Come on, I said. You went to appointments without me. You’re going to get Tom back. What have I done to make you turn on me like this?
Nothing, she cried. Those green eyes looked hurt, but I didn’t care. I didn’t mean to exclude you, but I just thought if I do end up with Tom, it’s better I get used to not having you to help me. Because you won’t be around, will you? You’ve been amazing, you really have, but it’s time for Tom to be there. There are loads of other pregnant women who are going to love having you around.
As she said this, I realised I would not do it again.
Being a doula would end here.
I’m going, I said.
I stood up and put on my coat without looking at her.
Don’t be mad at me, she pleaded.
I’m not, I lied. We’re done, aren’t we?
Vicky said she wanted to stay in touch. Wanted me to see the baby. That not being her doula didn’t mean I couldn’t be her friend.
I knew there was absolutely no point trying to persuade her not to go to Tom’s house. To Stella’s house. She was clearly determined to do it. So, for me, it was over. I put my money on the table and walked away, ignoring Vicky’s cries for me to wait, to let her walk to the bus stop with me. I could not tell her what to do, but I could try and think of a way to stop her doing it.
I turned at the café door and said goodbye.
She looked crestfallen.
But I didn’t care.
I didn’t want to wait for a bus in the rain, so I went to the nearest taxi rank and got into the one at the front of the queue. As we headed to my side of town, the driver sang merrily along to the tune on the radio. Something in his smile and in the tone of his voice triggered a memory. Harland. The first night we met. It was raining then too. I leaned forward. The same name on the dashboard: BOB FRACKLEHURST.
It was you, I said to him.
In a cheerful voice he asked what was him.
I explained that he had picked me up about twenty-seven years ago. It had been a miserable night and I’d waited in his car because he had another pick-up, so he couldn’t take me anywhere.
Bob chuckled and said that I must have a bloody good memory.
I told him it was a special night and so his name had stuck in my mind the way a man coming into my life had. I said I’d met the love of my life simply because I’d stepped into the cab that was his – Bob’s and Harland’s.
Bob admitted he didn’t remember, but that he had seen a lot of people in his time as a taxi driver. He had taken pregnant women to the hospital, been in collisions, comforted the bereaved, counselled the depressed and laughed with those celebrating. He said that tomorrow night would be his last shift. He would be retiring after thirty years of driving cabs around the city. Thirty years of being part of important journeys, and in between that just the radio for company.
You’ve probably listened to my daughter, I said. Stella McKeever. She does the 10pm show most week nights.
He smiled and said he always tuned in. That she had a no-nonsense way about her that reminded him of his Trish when she was younger. He had even given Stella a lift a few times. He said she was a bit quieter in real life, but he liked that. Said she had that air about her that you knew she would treat you as you treated her. Either very well or very badly.
How proud I felt.
My daughter.
We pulled up outside my house. I gave Bob a tip and wished him well in his retirement. He said he was sure he would miss it terribly and probably come back part-time. I got out and waved goodbye.
Just as I had said goodbye to Vicky. Goodbye to me being her doula.
Even though I didn’t intend for it to be the last time I saw her.
34
STELLA
NOW
Ellen Devonport in West Hull says on Twitter that if she revealed all her secrets they would be made into one of those three-part dramas on the BBC. It makes me smile, despite the intensity of the night. I read her tweet to the listeners and play her request: ‘Who’s That Girl’ by Eurythmics. Then my smile fades.
I go to my thin window. I wish I could open it and feel icy air on my face. In a way, I’m grieving. I’ve been given a father and yet I’m not able to have him.
Before I know it, the song is dying.
I return to the desk, slide the fader up, and say, ‘That was the divine Annie Lennox, and you’re listening to WLCR. I have been Stella McKeever and I’m afraid that’s it from me tonight.’ I pause. ‘My last night. Thank you for sharing my final show with me.’ A lump rises in my throat, threatening to crack the words. This is it. It’s over. Really over. I’m leaving. ‘Thank you for the requests, and for the secrets you’ve dared to share. Thank you for the last few years. If you’re still up, or you’re working that nightshift, don’t go anywhere because after the news it’ll be your fave Gilly Morgan with plenty more classic hits. After this tune, we’ll get the news on the hour.’ I smile to myself, and add, ‘The reheated news as I call it. If you heard it an hour ago, you already know everything there is to know. There won’t be any dark surprises.’ I pause. ‘Well, that’s it, then. Goodnight. Let’s end it with “Stargirl” by Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd…’
I shove my chair back with my feet as I have so many times before. Then I stand and push it firmly under the desk. I look at the clock; I have five minutes until The Man Who Knows comes. If he comes. Perhaps it’s all a game. Perhaps he’s never had any intention of actually coming. But even as these questions occur to me, I know he is already here.
I make a coffee, but I don’t drink it. I watch the steam rising and then dying. The final lines of the song rise and die too. I just want to see you shine cos I know you are a Stargirl. I lean over and start the adverts. Notifications draw my attention to the monitor. Someone has tweeted about my reheated news comment.
So no big reveal about #thegirlinthealley tonight, then? God bless poor #VictoriaValbon #WhoDidIt #BabyKiller
I don’t respond.
Instead I pick up the carrier bag my mum gave me.
I open it carefully.
Inside is a faded photograph pouch, the kind you used to get when you had to have your pictures developed by a professional. It contains three photos. They are all of my mother and father – Elizabeth and Harland. She looks just how I remember she did – vibrant, glorious, full of life. He looks completely different to the stiff and posed pictures used in his biography. Though he is heavy-featured, almost ugly, his eyes are also full of life. When he looks at my mother in one of the pictures, it is as though he can’t get enough of her. Cannot drink her all in. I’m not sure how it makes me feel. Happy that they had such love? Sad that it was more important to her than I was? Angry that I never got to meet him?
Disgusted at the pair of them?
I look more closely. There’s something else. Harland looks a little like Tom. In the simmering intensity of his gaze. In the light of his darkness. Is it possible I can only love a man who is similar to
the one I have never known?
I realise the adverts are ending.
No time now for brooding.
I time it carefully and take the listeners into the reheated news for the last time. At that exact moment, the door buzzer sounds. I put the pictures in my bag and go into the foyer.
Am I ready for this?
Yes, I am.
On the small screen, I see him: The Man Who Knows. The small, nondescript man I’ve recently seen loitering around the building. I open the door. He blinks in the glare of the fluorescent light as though it burns him. I suppose he’s a creature of the night; a man who takes pictures of the dark. He’s wearing a grey hoodie and has greasy hair and gaunt features.
He’s not menacing; not mysterious.
‘Come in, then,’ I say.
He steps into the foyer. He’s in my world now. He has surrendered his power. A Nikon camera hangs around his neck, not unlike my mum’s (and my father’s) good camera. Now and then he fiddles with the strap.
‘This place is smaller than I thought,’ he says. The voice is still mature, much more powerful than his physical appearance. He hasn’t looked at me yet.
‘Yeah, they all say that.’
I go along the still-dark corridor and into the studio, expecting him to follow me. He does. He looks around, at the fading carpet and walls, and I’m sure I see flickers of disappointment in his eyes. I understand. It’s the same when people meet Stephen Sainty – they expect him to be a hunk because of his rich voice.
You’d fit in here, I think.
The Man Who Knows is just like a misleading radio presenter or scruffy studio. Finally, he looks at me. I see in full the pale face, delicate cheekbones, and pointed chin. I see his eyes light up, the way my mum’s did when she was bathing in the sunny rays of some man’s attention. I do not disappoint him. Whatever he hoped to see, he sees. I smile.
‘What?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘Did you bring them?’ I ask.
He takes a large envelope from inside his coat but doesn’t open it. He really has them. Or at least he really has something. I feel a little sick.
‘I know I shouldn’t have scared you by hanging around outside those few times,’ he says.
‘You didn’t,’ I say coolly.
‘I want to explain that I’m not some weird stalker. I’m out most nights with my camera anyway, and I just wanted to…’
‘What?’
‘To see you properly,’ he says. ‘To get a picture of you, maybe.’
I laugh. ‘And you don’t think that’s stalker-ish?’
‘Not really. All fans want a picture of their idol.’
‘I’m hardly a celebrity,’ I say.
‘You are to me.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘So many things disappoint us, don’t they?’ he says. ‘When I started listening to your show, you became my saviour – you were there at the end of every long day. I’d have your voice in my ear and my camera in my hand and the sky up above me. It was like it was just the two of us.’ He sighs. ‘But I wondered if you were real. I mean, I knew you were real, but I thought, is it just a persona that she assumes on air? I came here to check. I hid by the trees, but I know you saw me and I know I unnerved you. But you were glorious.’ He pauses. ‘You are. You’re exactly like your voice.’
‘Glorious?’
‘Yes.’
What can I say to that? It’s exactly how I thought my mother looked in her pictures earlier. No one has ever called me glorious. Not even Tom. He’s whispered sweet obscenities in my ear, and said there’s no one like me and that I’m beautiful. But glorious? Not that.
‘And then that night happened,’ he says.
‘That night?’ I have almost forgotten why he’s here.
‘Victoria Valbon.’ He holds my gaze. ‘It’s like I was supposed to be there at that exact moment. To bear witness. To be able to call you and make the connection with you.’
‘Show me your pictures then,’ I say.
‘These are not the only copies.’ He takes them out of the envelope.
‘Well, of course,’ I say. ‘We live in the digital age. There’s no such thing anymore.’
He holds them to his chest as if, now the moment is here, he doesn’t want to share them. I think of Harland Grey’s final film, In Her Eyes. No – my father’s final film. When I read about it in the book, I looked online for it, but it wasn’t available anywhere, not to buy on DVD or to stream. I was glad. I didn’t want to have to decide if I could watch a girl die before my very eyes. See the colour fade from her irises like paint watered down.
‘You didn’t come all this way not to show me,’ I say. ‘Harland Grey was compelled to share his work. And you’re the same.’
‘Harland Grey? What’s he got to do with this?’ The Man Who Knows looks confused.
I smile. Something profound occurs to me. ‘Quite a lot. Don’t you see? You’re pretty similar. You both caught a murder on camera.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t commit one,’ he cries. ‘I didn’t set one up!’
‘I suppose not.’
‘That’s what you call creepy. Murdering a girl and recording it. I’m nothing like him.’ He pauses, fingering his camera strap. ‘What made you put that together?’
‘He’s my father,’ I say. It’s like I want to test the fact on someone. Gauge what kind of a response it gets.
‘Your father? But I thought you didn’t … you said on air you didn’t…’
‘Know? No, I didn’t. But I do now. I’m not going into the details. Those are private. But he is.’
‘Wow.’ He slumps against the wall. Studies me as though I have changed before his eyes. ‘That must have been … wow. I remember it being on the news that he had died last year. My mum loves true crime and she was telling me what he’d done. There was talk of them making a film about him, wasn’t there?’ He pauses. ‘Kind of makes me not want to go fishing and find out who my dad is after all. Maybe it’s better to keep the fantasy of a perfect father, eh?’
I shrug.
‘How do you feel that it’s Harland Grey – of all the men in the world it could be?’
‘I’m still processing it. It’ll take time.’ I pause. ‘Like the best photographs do, you could say? So, show me yours.’
The Man Who Knows hands them over. Our fingers briefly touch. Like mine, his are warm. There are three pictures. I peer at the top one. Though it’s a colour print, the night makes it grainy, all slate greys, dirty whites and deepest blacks. A lamppost in the background scatters butternut orange at its feet. It doesn’t reach the two people in the centre of the picture.
The two people that could be anyone.
One of them wears what looks like a long hooded coat, and has their back to the camera. The other is slightly smaller in height, and the coat in their hand is a dirty red in the darkness. Even though I can’t see the face, I know it’s Victoria. Her pregnancy is barely apparent; just a small rounding in her shape.
I look at the next picture. It’s almost exactly the same, except that the taller figure has moved closer to Victoria. In the third, this figure has a hand at Victoria’s neck.
On Gilly Morgan’s prerecorded show, the haunting melody of A-ha’s ‘Hunting High and Low’ fills the studio. And within the reach of my hands, she’s sound asleep, and she’s sweeter now than the wildest dream…
I don’t think these pictures give anything away. They are as blurred as the one my mum took of me as a child during that precious mother/daughter moment. They don’t change anything.
He might be The Man Who Knows, but he has no proof.
‘Is this all you have?’ I ask him.
‘These were the best of them,’ says The Man Who Reckons He Knows. ‘I wasn’t prepared, remember. It was dark. It all happened so fast.’
‘You can’t see anything at all,’ I say.
‘You can,’ he insists. ‘Two people. Arguing.’
‘You can’t even se
e who they are.’
‘Maybe.’ He studies me. ‘But they have technology these days, don’t they? They can enhance pictures in ways we couldn’t years ago. They can find details like eye colour, exact height, a fingerprint.’
‘They can’t change an angle though. The face of her killer is hidden by the hood, and the hands are the wrong way to get a fingerprint.’
He frowns, looks more closely. ‘The face is only partly concealed.’
‘And anyone would look tall next to Victoria,’ I say. ‘Even you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They say she was small.’
‘They could work out the killer’s height from his relation to more than just Victoria.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I say. ‘This is too far away. You can’t enhance what doesn’t exist. I remember reading this article about the ridiculous techniques used in that CSI TV show that just couldn’t happen in real life. One was the enhancement of pictures. Experts said in a low pixel image it simply wouldn’t be possible to use it as evidence. You already zoomed in quite a lot and lost the quality.’
He seems miffed. ‘I always take great pictures,’ he says. ‘I know it’s not my best work, but I just wasn’t as near as I could have been. I couldn’t focus because I wasn’t able to see my subject.’ He sighs and explains. ‘I was passing the end of the alley and I heard something. An argument. I could just make out two people. They were shrieking at each other. I hid behind the bushes at the opening. Then the voices grew quieter. That seemed worse somehow. I used my camera – stretched my arm out – it could see what I couldn’t.’
‘You never thought to go and see if anyone needed help?’
‘Not my place to,’ he says, ‘and I didn’t know that that was going to happen. How could I know that poor woman would end up with her throat cut open like that? I’ve seen loads of arguments in the street, but no one ever ended up dead.’
‘So you never really saw it,’ I say. ‘Your camera did while you hid. You’re not even a witness.’
‘But I heard it.’
‘That’s not reliable, really, is it?’
‘With these pictures and my testimony, it could help.’
