Remember Me This Way (26 page)

‘It’s experience.’ I start putting on my coat, then check my bag for my wallet and keys. ‘Work can be boring, unless you’re lucky and happen to do what you love, and even then you’re answerable to other people.’

‘Unless you’re self-employed like Zach. He wasn’t answerable to anyone. He was free.’

‘Yes, but he also didn’t earn any money.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘It does if you want to live in the real world. He had all these big ideas about being self-sufficient. But it’s one thing to talk about it, another to put it into practice. All I am saying is, if you have the opportunity, the
privilege
, of getting experience, then you shouldn’t let it pass you by.’

She rubs the back of one hand with the tips of her fingers, concentrating as if it were important, ignoring me.

‘Anyway,’ I say, half out of the room, ‘I’ve got to go to work now, or I’ll be late.’ I run upstairs for Conor’s mended blazer, and then back down. She hasn’t moved from the kitchen. I want her to leave the house at the same time as me, but that doesn’t seem likely. ‘Could you lock the front door when you go and stick the key through the letter box? And Onnie?’

She looks up from her hand.

‘Please ring me when you’ve spoken to Xenia.’

‘OK.’

I am halfway along the passage when I hear her say: ‘I might just walk out of here, disappear and never come back. No one will notice.’

I hesitate. Irritation runs through me. I’m tempted to call, ‘Go on then, Onnie, I dare you.’ But I don’t. I lay my bag and Conor’s blazer down in a heap in the hall and walk back into the room. Her head is bowed. She is kicking the legs of the table rhythmically with her feet – a toddler in teenage form. I crouch down and put my arms around her from the side. ‘Don’t be silly. Think how upset your parents would be, and all your friends, if they didn’t know where you’d gone.’

‘I haven’t got any friends.’ She tries to pull away from me. ‘They wouldn’t even notice. I told you, no one at home cares what I do.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ I say, as kindly as I can manage. ‘I’m sure they worry about you.’

She laughs bitterly. ‘Has anyone rung me while I’ve been here?’ She picks up her phone and then throws it down again. ‘They don’t care about me.’ She turns her face towards me, her eyes small, her mouth twisted with misery. ‘All they worry about is that I might embarrass them during a photo opportunity. That’s the only time my dad ever wants anything to do with me, when the press are around.’

I say, ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘How do you know? You don’t know anything about me. You don’t even want me here, and why should you? I don’t blame you for hating me.’

‘I don’t hate you. Why on earth would I hate you? You’re being silly now. Come on.’ I rub her shoulder and smooth her hair, picking a small feather out of it. ‘There we go.’

‘Why are you being nice to me?’

‘I’m not. I’m just . . . I think—’ I bend so I can see her face ‘—that you should pull yourself together and go to Shelby Pink. You’ll feel better today, more confident.’

‘I can’t.’ She rubs her eyes. ‘I’ve got myself too upset now.’

I feel a seeping boredom. ‘Go home then, watch TV, see a friend.’

The dog in his basket gives a small shudder. I reach back and stroke his nose. It feels dry. ‘You’re not feeling great either,’ I say under my breath. I stand up. ‘Onnie, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late. I’ve got a lot to do today and I’ll have to take the dog to the vet at lunchtime so . . .’ I make a cheerful face. ‘So, I’ll see you.’

‘I know!’ she says.

I’m at the door. ‘What?’

‘I’ll look after Howard today. I’ll keep an eye on him. I’ll take him to the vet for you, if you like.’

‘No, honestly. It’s fine.’

Howard is lying in a strange position, head down, his sides moving fast. I look from him to Onnie. She’s stopped crying. ‘Go on. Let me,’ she says eagerly. ‘I’ll go to Shelby Pink once he’s better. But let me look after him.’

‘He’s only eaten something dodgy,’ I say. ‘That’s all it is.’

‘But what if he hasn’t? What if it’s more serious than that?  Leave me the vet’s number. I’ll sort it.’

I don’t know if it’s because I’m worried about Howard or sorry for Onnie, but against my better judgement, I hear myself agree.

Something has happened at school. I can tell the moment I walk in. The head’s door is closed and Michele, the school secretary, who’s talking to a young man in the foyer, doesn’t smile at me when I walk past. Hushed voices in the kitchen. Jane and Pat are hovering by the fridge. Pat’s holding her hand over her mouth. Jane’s eyes look red and swollen.

‘Have you heard?’ Jane says, seeing me.

‘No. What?’

‘Sam.’

A twinge of unease. ‘What about Sam?’

Pat leans forward. ‘He’s in hospital. He’s had an accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’

‘He’s been mugged,’ Jane says. ‘Badly. Head injury. He’s unconscious.’

‘He’s at St George’s,’ Pat adds. ‘His ex-wife is with him and rang to tell Sandra last night.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘Yes, I think it is.’ Jane nods, and then nods again, as if to calm herself. ‘He hadn’t gained consciousness when Michele rang this morning.’

Something dark pulses in my chest. ‘When?’

‘Shortly after he left the pub,’ Pat says. ‘He was found just after nine by some teenagers on the common, the other side of the bridge, near the pond. He told us he was going straight home when he left us, but—’

‘He walked me home,’ I say. ‘He had an umbrella. It was raining. I told him I was fine.’

Jane is staring at me.

‘You should tell the police,’ Pat says. ‘It’s possible you were the last person to see him.’

Zach

June 2011

She swam this evening, down in that cove that only appears at low tide.

We’d been walking back along the cliff from Daymer Bay and bumped into Victoria and Murphy coming the other way. I panicked for a moment in case they mentioned Onnie’s ‘sessions’. I needn’t have worried. Victoria, who even as a teenager used to refer to people as ‘common’ and call tourists ‘grockles’, was too busy looking down her nose at Lizzie to expand the conversation beyond casual niceties. ‘Sorry you couldn’t come the other night,’ she said.

‘We had a laugh,’ Murphy agreed, though he pronounced it ‘laff’ because he thinks he’s one of the lads.

‘Nice people,’ Lizzie said when they’d gone, and then, as if to release the tension their company had induced, dragged me along the path to the sea.

The air was quiet down there, tucked out of the wind, and she threw off her clothes and ran, squealing, into the gathering foam. Trails of seaweed clung to her thighs. She dipped, like a porpoise, into the water and came up spluttering. Her white skin, pale limbs, the flash of her wet hair. How ordinary she is, I thought, how plain, and yet she holds my heart in her hand. I realised if she ever slept with someone else, I would kill her.

And him.

Chapter Fifteen

Lizzie

I am up in the library, staring out of the side window across the grey streak of common and the red rooftops of South London. I press my forehead against the cold glass. The conviction is back, unfurling inside, spreading out its fingers – the clenching of dread and fear, and something else, lower down, a stirring so shaming I want to crush my head against the glass, bite my lip until it bleeds.

I am luring him into the open, forcing him to action. It’s working, even if it’s at Sam’s expense.

I hear Hannah Morrow’s voice in the corridor. ‘Goodness me, those stairs,’ she is saying. ‘You wouldn’t need a gym membership if you worked here.’

‘Murders your knees,’ Michele replies.

Hannah strolls straight into the room. She’s in her uniform today – dog-tooth tie, chevroned hat, walkie-talkie under her chin. It’s only when the students stand up and begin to file out that I see someone else is with her, a tall, dour man in jeans and a grubby waxed jacket. DI Perivale, her boss. He’s leaning against the far wall of the corridor, his arms folded. When he walks in, he nods but doesn’t sit down. Instead, he stands by Fiction, A–H, pretending to study the shelves, his head to one side, cupping his chin with his hand, stroking it back and forth as if deep in thought.

Michele asks if they want a tea or coffee or a glass of water and Hannah, whose new bob is pulled back into a tiny ponytail with the aid of a blue fabric scrunchie and several kirby grips, says, ‘Oh go on then. Cup of coffee. Lovely.’

Perivale, his back still turned, doesn’t say anything and Michele waits, grimacing – she’s forgotten his name and doesn’t know how to get his attention – before scurrying out.

Hannah came up here once before, the morning after my break-in, but she hovers by the window and makes small talk about the view. ‘Is that Crystal Place? God, you’d think it was the Eiffel Tower.’ Her chatter is more bullish today, as if she needs to prove Perivale’s presence is not intimidating. We’re waiting for Michele to come back, to be clear of interruption, but I want to get on with it. Zach needs to be stopped before he does anything else. Before I do, or think, or feel anything else.

Michele pushes the door open with the tray and I pile up books to make room on the desk for her to put it down. ‘Biscuits,’ she says.

Hannah sits down at the desk and helps herself. ‘Ooh, rude not to,’ she says.

Perivale closes the door quietly behind Michele and joins us at my desk, spinning the free chair round and sitting on it backwards, resting his chin on the bar. It’s the gesture, I think, of someone who likes to be in control, or who is so bored he will do anything to shake up his environment. The hems of his trousers are coming undone. The heels of his brown leather shoes, which he is tapping, are worn on one side.

‘Right then,’ he says on a sigh. It’s a routine visit. He wants to get this over with. He runs his hands through his lank locks. ‘PC Morrow says you were the last to see Sam Welham yesterday evening.’

I explain what happened. He writes notes. He has unkempt eyebrows, a tiny flicker of dandruff in his hair. I try to be as factual as I can. I run through the relevant details, the weather, the flow of commuters from the train station, the few minutes we spent on the corner of Dorlcote Road. ‘We talked about my dog, who’s ill,’ I say. ‘We argued over the umbrella. He wanted me to take it.’

‘And did you?’ Hannah asks.

‘No. It was his. I told him he needed it more than I did. I was nearly home.’

Perivale scans the pages of his notebook, listing his questions in a mechanical monotone. ‘Did you see anyone at any stage? Was anyone behaving suspiciously? Did anyone appear to be following?’

‘Only the commuters. No one stood out.’

‘And did Mr Welham say where he was going after he left you?’

‘Home, I assumed.’

‘Was he carrying anything valuable as far as you are aware?’

‘No. His phone. His wallet, I suppose. Is that what they took? The muggers?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘They didn’t take his phone or his wallet. It appears, unless we’re missing something, to have been a random act of violence.’

‘Random?’ I say.

Perivale doesn’t look as if he is going to answer for a moment. He narrows his eyes and then says, almost conversationally, ‘Did you know Mr Welham well?’

‘No. No, not really,’ I stammer. ‘He only started this year.’

Perivale grips the back of the chair, his elbows jutting out at an angle, like a driver bracing himself at the wheel. ‘Do you know of any reason why anyone might want to do him harm?’

I glance across at Hannah. I wish she had come alone. This is my moment. This is when I could be telling her everything. My heart begins to race. I look back at Perivale, so sure of himself, so brusque.

‘No,’ I say falteringly.

‘OK, then.’ He stands up, swirls the chair quickly in the air and replaces it on the ground. ‘I think we’re done,’ he says to Morrow.

She too stands up, brushing biscuit crumbs from the corners of her mouth. Perivale, arms at his side, heels together, gives me another nod, more formal this time, like a courtier taking his leave, and strides out of the room. He stands in the passage, talking loudly into his mobile.

One more chance. I haven’t got much time. If I tell her now, she can catch Zach before he does anything else.

‘He’s a funny one,’ Morrow says quietly. ‘I’d love to meet his wife some day, find out how she puts up with it. Anyway,’ she adds, ‘you all right?’

‘Actually. No. I’m not,’ I say. I’m breathless, my voice is tight. I am close to tears. Saying this out loud is almost unbearable. ‘I need to talk to you about Zach. I think Zach is responsible. I . . .’

An expression fleets across her face. It’s gone as quickly as it came, but I caught it. It wasn’t concern, her usual expression, but boredom, tempered by slight irritation.

Perivale is still talking on his phone. I hear a door shut loudly – Joyce Poplin in the lesson opposite expressing her disapproval. Any minute the bell for the next lesson will go.

‘Responsible for what?’ Morrow asks, her freckled nose wrinkled in sympathy now, her head tilted.

I let a beat pass. My hands are clenched, out of view, in my pockets. ‘I found out that his last girlfriend died,’ I say. ‘Shortly after they split up. She was in an accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

‘What was her name?’ She sits back down at the edge of the desk.

‘Reid. Charlotte Reid. She lived in Brighton.’

‘Right. PC Morrow.’ Perivale looms in the doorway. ‘If I could
drag
you away, we’re needed at the hospital.’

‘What is it? What’s happened?’

Perivale darts me a look, heavy with impatience. Ignoring me, he says to Morrow, ‘Sometime today, this week. Unless you have other plans?’

‘All yours,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘Developments?’

‘That was the doctor. We can take a statement.’

It takes a moment for his words to sink in.

‘He’s conscious?’ I ask.

‘Apparently so,’ Perivale says.