The Roommates

by Rachel Sargeant

  “What college does she go to? What’s she studying?” Imo asks and turns to Tegan. “We could go there now.”

  “Colleges are all the same to me. I’m afraid I don’t know, dear.” The old man shakes his head and retreats behind his door.

  Imo steps forward with her hand out ready to knock and ask him more.

  Tegan tugs her away. “Leave him be. He said he doesn’t know where she is.” And she doesn’t want to waste time driving across London to the designated college. It’s time they called it a day.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “We go home, Imogen. He’s confirmed he knows her.” Tegan calls the lift. “She lives here; she’s not lost.”

  Imo’s eyes flash and Tegan braces herself for another barrage of crime statistics. But Imo says quietly, “It could be weeks since a definite sighting. Trails go cold.”

  In the close proximity of the lift, Imo’s dejection makes Tegan pause. “I get that you’re passionate about this, and maybe something’s happened to make you …” She clams up, not going there. “But realistically, Imo, this woman isn’t missing.”

  Imo gives a reluctant nod and studies her trainers as they descend.

  “I think you’re right,” she says, getting her second wind as they reach the car. “She’s not missing, but she might know where Amber is.”

  “Come on, Imogen. That’s a stretch.”

  “Does your sat nav say how far it is to Chadcombe? You know that stuff Jade Murphy told you about Amber getting into drugs, what if the neighbour was the supplier? It would explain the name change if she’s a criminal. Maybe Amber’s fallen back into her old ways. We could go to that bridge Jade talked about, see if Amber’s addict friends are there. They could be part of the jigsaw. We might as well now we’re down here.”

  “Enough now,” Tegan snaps. “We’re not Scott and Bailey. We’ve done our best to find Cheryl but that’s the end of it.”

  Tegan starts the engine and senses Imo staring at her as she backs out. She’s given up a day and a tank of petrol to indulge Imo’s detective fantasy. Imo can gawp at her all the way back to Abbeythorpe if she wants, because that’s where Tegan’s heading, and no detours.

  Chapter 36

  Tegan

  It takes over an hour to drive from Ealing to Chadcombe. Tegan knows she’s been played but, when Imo announced she’d get the train there tomorrow, Tegan had no choice. Letting Imo wander into a drugs lair on her own would be like dumping Snow White in an apple orchard. The detour became a necessity.

  The Chadcombe Bridge is easy to find as the dual carriageway into the town goes over it. The River Thames below is a picture of designer yachts and riverside bars. The local council must have done a clean-up operation since Amber used to loiter here. It’s hardly the den of iniquity that Amber’s sister Jade painted.

  Once over the bridge, Tegan takes the first exit and parks in a metered space by the river, but doesn’t bother paying; they won’t be here long. As they walk along the promenade they see a figure on a bench, a sleeping bag rolled up beside him.

  Before Tegan can stop her, Imo goes to him, waving her mobile. Tegan sighs and appraises the tramp. Thinning ragged hair, mottled skin. Fortyish? If he legs it with the phone, they might be able to catch him.

  “Have you seen this girl?” Imo asks, putting the phone into harm’s way.

  The man looks at the screen, without taking it. “I seem to have lost my spectacles.” His voice is surprisingly cultured. “Blind as a bat really.”

  And smelly as a badger. Tegan shifts downwind. “She’s about five six, meat on her bones, short bleached hair.”

  “How old?” He casts his gummy eyes towards her and then turns back to Imo for the answer.

  “Eighteen, but she used to hang around Chadcombe a few years ago.”

  “The youngsters congregate under there.” He points a chapped hand towards the bridge. “Be careful, though, some of them are, well, not themselves. Drugs, of course.”

  “Thanks.” Imo presses something into his hand. “Can you get a coffee round here?”

  He pockets the money. “I’ll take a cup of tea at the kiosk in the marina.” He twists a business card in his hands. Imo must have given him it with the coins. “Can’t read it but I can guess what this is. Alas too late for me. But I appreciate the gesture.” He hands it back to her.

  “Take care,” Imo says and walks on.

  They see the bridge’s underbelly of concrete-coated joists. Half a dozen figures huddle round a fire even though the early afternoon is warm. What’s the life expectancy of a junkie? If Amber hung around with a crowd when she was fourteen, they’re likely in prison or dead by now. This lot will be the next no-hope generation, unlikely to be as rational as the tramp.

  She touches Imo’s arm. “Let me do the talking this time.”

  “I’m not scared, if that’s what you think.”

  “Suit yourself.” Tegan shrugs.

  The bridge casts a dark shadow. Tegan shivers and Imo folds her arms. The fire is in a metal brazier the junkies must have nicked from somewhere. The light from the flames flickers across their putty-white faces, but they don’t look up when Tegan and Imo approach. Two boys in tracky bottoms and dirty parkas share a fat, stubby smoke.

  Tegan and Imo halt four feet from the fire. By some unspoken agreement, they’ve decided this is the group’s threshold; any closer and they’d be marching into their private space.

  A girl lifts her gaze from the fire and looks in their direction, but her eyes are bleary and unfocused.

  “Our friend used to come here,” Imo says simply. Tegan notes that she doesn’t show her phone this time.

  The girl coughs. Tegan can’t tell whether she’s trying to answer, or if it’s the effects of the smoke. As if exercising some muscle memory from a past life, the girl covers her mouth politely. Her grime-coloured fingernails are bitten down. The sleeve of her loose, grey jumper slips to reveal a slit-slat stave of scars inside her wrist. Tegan wants to cough too, or puke; behind the smoky air is the distinctive smell of urine.

  Their presence finally registers with the others and six pairs of glittering eyes look at them. But nothing else in their faces, or their bodies, reacts.

  A lorry judders across the bridge. A chip wrapper presses against a graffitied bridge joist in the wind. But there are no sleeping bags or cardboard boxes. Where do these people go at night – back to middle-class mummy and daddy? Is that what it was like for Amber’s mother – the constant dread of what state her daughter would roll home in?

  “Our friend is Amber Murphy,” Imo says. “Did you know her?”

  The girl who coughed stands up and lolls closer to them. Her face crumples. Imo and Tegan step back. “Amber … hurt too much,” the girl says. Then her mood changes and she turns to walk away.

  Tegan takes out a five-pound note. “Was Amber a friend of yours?” She holds the money out to the girl. “Are you still in touch?” She winces; schoolgirl error. She’s given away her cash on a stupid question.

  The girl snatches the money and blinks at Tegan, rocking from foot to foot. The air is thick with the dank, decaying smell of her. “Never the same after Leo.”

  “What you saying, Vee?” a voice calls out. A tall figure walks towards them from the other end of the tunnel. His boots ring out as he approaches, his phlegmy cough echoing in the silence. Tegan tenses and wonders whether they have just made a big mistake. But as he gets closer, Tegan relaxes slightly. He’s just a boy. His washed-out blond hair matches his skin. There are scabs around his mouth, a black bruise on his cheek.

  The girl looks away. “Doesn’t matter, Danno.” She rejoins the group at the fire.

  The two boys with the spliff stare morosely into the flames. The tall boy’s eyes flit between Tegan and Vee.

  “Did you know Amber?” Tegan asks, but fears it’s another stupid question. He’ll say yes if he’s seen the fiver that went Vee’s way.

  His eyes widen and he takes a step
closer, causing Tegan’s heartbeat to rise. She grips her car key, ready to jab, but his shoulders buckle before he can take another step. “They wouldn’t give him a funeral, told her he was born dead.” He gets down on his haunches, gazes into the fire.

  Imo keys something into her phone. Vee hugs her skinny arms around herself and rocks back and forth, continuing to stare at the fire. A pleasure cruiser coasts by on the river, with a brunette in sunglasses on deck. She doesn’t look their way, her landscape unspoilt.

  Tegan’s phone buzzes. She reads the screen. It’s from Imo: Fake father? Imo stares at her expectantly. At once, Tegan sees what she means and swallows a gulp of smoky air. It hadn’t occurred to her that Amber’s pregnancy charade might not have hurt just her family and her neighbour, that there could have been a duped boyfriend too. This poor sod is grieving for a kid that never existed. When Amber got bored of the joke, she must have told him his son was stillborn. Is that why he’s under this stinking bridge? Grief harder to shake off than the drugs?

  “We’re sorry for your loss.” Imo steps forward to put her hand on the boy’s filthy jacket.

  But Vee knocks Imo’s arm away. “Leave him. He doesn’t need you stirring that up.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re going.” There’s an edge to Imo’s voice. “Come on, Tegan.” They start to stride away, but after a few metres, Imo stops. She pauses and turns. Goes back a final time, her tone softer again. “Do you stay here all night?”

  “We’ve got places,” Danno says.

  “None of your business.” Vee takes his elbow to pull him away.

  Imo gets out a card and holds it out to them. “One text, that’s all, nothing more.”

  When they don’t take the card, she lays it on the ground. “Families worry. Believe me.”

  ***

  The brooding silence in the car gets to Tegan and she finds herself driving carefully, concentrating hard on mirror, signal, manoeuvre every time she overtakes an Eddie Stobart. She wants to know what Imo’s thinking, but the girl sits ramrod straight, eyes dead ahead.

  They’re level with Oxford when Phoenix calls Imo’s mobile. “Just checking you’re surviving Tegan’s driving.”

  “Watch it, you’re on speaker.” Tegan laughs, relieved at having someone to talk to. “We’d have been back hours ago but for a pointless detour to crackhead-land.”

  “Not completely pointless,” Imo snaps. “We now know Amber’s not worth finding.” She explains to Phoenix about the father of Amber’s fake baby. “You should have seen him. He looks like the walking dead. Amber did that to him. I thought she was a victim – missing – but those people we saw today, they’re the vulnerable ones.”

  Good, thinks Tegan, she’ll drop it now. She imagines Phoenix thinking the same thing.

  “Did you go to Ealing?” Phoenix asks.

  “Nothing doing. We found Cheryl–Jane’s flat but a neighbour told us she was out at college.”

  “Good, good.” Phoenix sounds relieved. Hardly surprising as she was the one who wanted to duck out of the whole Cheryl business after she’d done the NHS search. She never did tell Tegan what she found. And Tegan’s not about to ask, not now that even Imo has lost interest.

  But then Phoenix says, “Maybe the reason for Amber’s departure lies at the Abbey.”

  “Unlikely,” Imo says. She looks out of the window, as if detaching herself from the phone conversation. Tegan wishes Phoenix could see Imo’s disinterest and end the call.

  Instead Phoenix says, “Amber went weird on us at the Freshers’ Fair. What if it’s got something to do with that?”

  “What, like: she was terrified the chess nerd would ask her out?” Tegan calls as she pulls past a lorry.

  Her sarcasm fails to reach Phoenix, who carries on. “Not him. Something came over her when we were near the Deaf Students’ information stand and the Parents’ Group. Do you remember?”

  “Not really.” Tegan sighs. “I think I’d moved on.” Like I wish you would now.

  “And the LGBTQ girl was there,” Imo says. “She was nice, wasn’t she?”

  There’s a pause on the line.

  “Phoenix, are you still there?”

  Phoenix speaks again. “I’ve been mulling it over for a few days. It might be something, might be nothing, but did you notice the woman on the Parents’ stall when we went back to ask about Amber?”

  “What about her?” Imo says. Still looking out of the window.

  “Her body language. She was holding back. I might be wrong, that’s why I haven’t said anything. But I know a couple who do a mind-reading act. They taught me a bit about understanding people. It’s all about the tells.”

  There’s a pause. Tegan toys with lobbing Imo’s phone out of the car. Is Phoenix trying to wind Imo up again? Mind-reading act? Where does she find such weird friends?

  “Spit it out, Phoenix.” She taps the steering wheel, annoyed at her own curiosity.

  “When Imo asked her if she’d seen Amber, the woman moved her leaflets across the table as if creating a barrier between her and Imo. She started on about mature students and a family barbecue, but barely looked at Amber’s photo.”

  Tegan knows a con when she sees one – she can read the signs too – but she doesn’t buy Phoenix’s interpretation. “You’re reading too much into it. Why would some random woman know anything about Amber quitting uni?”

  Imo bounces in her seat. Oh crap, she’s hooked again. “I noticed that thing she did with the leaflets.”

  “Exactly,” Phoenix replies. “You didn’t get close to her, Tegan, but her eye movements said she wasn’t telling the truth when she claimed she’d clocked off early on Tuesday. And we know she was still there; we saw her. She was still there when Amber flounced off. I reckon she saw something and for some reason she wouldn’t tell us. The problem is; I don’t know how to find her. The Freshers’ Fair’s finished and I tried accessing the Abbey Parents’ Group on Facebook, but it’s invitation only, so I can’t see members’ profiles.”

  Imo turns to Tegan. “Can you hack in?”

  Tegan’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “I thought you said Amber wasn’t worth bothering with. Why do you care?”

  “I don’t … I can’t explain … If this woman saw what happened, she might know where Amber went. I need to find her and get her to say what she saw. Then I can forget about Amber. We all can. So will you hack into Facebook?”

  Tegan narrows her eyes. Is that what they think of her: a computer hacker, a criminal, her father’s daughter? She can’t hack into anything – even if she wants to – not without help. Her foot slips on the accelerator as another thought parachutes into her head. No way – she couldn’t, could she? The car behind flashes its lights and she speeds up. No way.

  But she hears herself ask, “When’s the family barbecue the woman told you about?”

  “Tomorrow lunchtime. Why?”

  “If you’re both so desperate to find that woman, you should go. She’s bound to be there.”

  “It’s for parents only, like the Facebook group,” Phoenix says.

  Tegan hesitates, doubting her idea. Why should she help? It’s not her problem. Phoenix seems as hooked as Imo – she can leave them both to it and get on with her life.

  But Imo is still looking at her with expectant, puppy-dog eyes. “So how can we get into the Parents’ Group?”

  Tegan takes a deep breath. “Time my son and I joined.”

  “Tegan!” Imo gasps. “You’ve got a baby?”

  There’s silence on the phone and Tegan imagines Phoenix with the same open-mouthed expression as Imo. She smiles to herself as she keeps them hanging.

  “I’m not that stupid,” she says eventually. “But I know where I can borrow one.” She pulls off at Cherwell Valley services and resets the sat nav.

  Chapter 37

  Amber

  Her fingers trace the rut in her scalp. Not so soft today. A scab has started to grow. Rough and brittle. Itchy. She examines her
fingernails in the gloom. The bloodstains aren’t just from where she’s bitten them to the quick; her head bled again yesterday when she stupidly scratched it through her greasy hair.

  Was it yesterday? Hours and minutes merge because of her blackouts. A weak light ebbs and flows in the corner of the wall, but she’s not sure it signifies night and day. What can a patch of flaking plaster blistered with cotton-wool mould tell her? All she knows is the damp, pervasive smell of spores and a thousand imaginary beetles that feed on the pus around her tied ankle.

  At first she thought it would be easy to slip the knot, but the ring of twine tightened into her bone with every futile effort she made. She’d tried biting the slack between her foot and where the cord was fixed to the bedframe, but couldn’t bend that far however hard she stretched. And with her belly in a permanent growl, she’d run out of energy to persist. She devoured the sour apple and soft crisps ages ago. There’s been no food since then.

  Her body trembles. Sweat prickles out of every pore. Someone will find her, won’t they, even though she knows now this isn’t the bridge? Who did she tell? She tries to remember, shuts her eyes tight. If only her head would clear. Her memory goes over the same ground, retracing her steps, and her thoughts return once again to the Freshers’ Fair.

  ***

  On shaking legs, she makes it out of the Great Hall and stands on the steps outside. Students stream past, chatting happily. She paces around the building to the back and into the shade. Cars jockey for space in the small car park. She walks on, past a service entrance and a bin store. And eventually returns to the afternoon sunshine.

  Her steps have reached a rhythm and she follows the same route again. Three times around the building. Five. Rubbing her bracelets up and down her forearms as she struggles for what to say and how to say it. Composing, editing, rehearsing. At the back of her mind lurks the self-doubt and humiliation that made things collapse as they did.

  At the front of the Great Hall again, she decides it’s time to act, confront her past. Her heart races as she approaches the steps. A bangle slips off her wrist and she stoops to follow it. The silver bracelet spins away. Bounces down the steps, glinting in the sunlight. The Great Hall doors open again. She gasps as two figures cast a fresh shadow over the steps. Her blood stills, freezes in her veins. Time stops.