To the right of the notepad, there is a pile of clothes. I recognise them instantly; a pair of jeans, some flat black shoes and a faded AC/DC T-shirt. The clothes are Sylvie’s. The room is strewn with other Sylvie essentials; some make-up and car keys on a dresser, a jacket over a chair, a handbag. The used toothbrush in the bathroom was Sylvie’s. She’s moved in.
‘I make a pretty good you,’ I say to her, when I walk into Michael’s glistening open-plan kitchen. Her jeans fit fine. The pair of them look up from sorting various plastic containers from a large bag on to plates. Jalfrezi hangs in the air. To my delight, Michael has ordered curry.
‘Sorry about the mess in there,’ says Sylvie. ‘I came over late last night and we started going through your blog together, trying to find your clues. Michael very kindly gave me the spare room. I’m happy enough on the couch tonight though, I mean it. If anyone deserves a sleep in a comfy bed, it’s you.’
A real bed, I can’t believe it. I thought that stale mattress would be my final resting place.
I guzzle my takeaway dinner like it’s cold water, then watch Michael and Sylvie finish theirs. They eat in silence. It’s my first proper look at them since I regained my freedom, and I notice they look almost as worn as I feel. Both their faces are peppered with red dots – Sylvie even has a large cut under her left eye. This is the first time I’ve seen them both in the light. I flick my own frayed hand in front of my face, swallow a last mouthful of chicken, and ask: ‘What happened to your faces?’
They look at each other across their curries and Sylvie laughs. Michael remains stone-faced. Sylvie takes up the slack.
‘You happened,’ she says. ‘When you crashed that thing through the glass. It went everywhere.’
I apologise, but Michael keeps eating his curry. He won’t look me in the eye. The man I should be marrying cannot bear to be in the same room as me.
‘So what’s the plan, Suzanne?’
The question throws me. Sylvie never calls me Suzanne. She puts her fork down and stares at me with that Sylvie smile.
‘I don’t …. I don’t know. I thought it was to go to the hospital.’
Now Michael does look at me, but with a face that could cut through a glass door. Maybe he thought the hot water, the spare room and the comforting curry would distract me from my goal, but I need to see Miles Phillips.
Michael looks at his watch.
‘It’s too late. We’re not going anywhere.’
I can wait until he’s gone to bed. I can take his car keys. He leaves them in a faux Chinese dynasty bowl in a corner of the kitchen. But my left knee knifes between my thigh and shin – I can’t really put weight on it. Not ideal for changing gears. Booking a cab is impossible; the police have my phones. They found the dummy pay-as-you-go in the lower room under my cell, and confiscated my real one from my bedroom in the girls’ flat. I could hail a taxi, but it’s a good fifteen-minute walk from Michael’s secluded leafy road to Islington high street. My legs don’t work like they should.
I decide to give Michael one last chance. When Sylvie goes to the bathroom after they’ve tidied up the take-away, I knock on the door of a place where I no longer belong; his bedroom.
‘Suze, wait! What?’
I close the door behind me before he can form an argument. Keeping a solicitor quiet is almost impossible, but there must be a cold look in my eyes, for he freezes under their gaze.
‘I don’t know what Harding told you, or what you think you saw when you ran into that room under the theatre, but you have to believe me, Michael; I didn’t do what they said I did. I didn’t do this. I was taken. It’s all in here. You have to read this.’
I shake the notepad up and down, but he’s not interested in my story. He tells me to calm down, to get some sleep and we can think things through in the morning. But in the morning, Harding will take Phillips’s statement, take his side, and I will be summoned back to the station. I tell Michael this, but he is unmoved.
‘I am sorry, Suze. I’m not taking you to the hospital.’
He nods over at his bedside table. It’s the side I used to sleep on while he spooned me for all he was worth. Underneath the lamp – a lamp I picked – are Michael’s car keys. They don’t live in the bowl in the kitchen any more.
‘Okay, I get it,’ I say up at him, he in his pyjamas and me in someone else’s clothes. I must get my notepad into the hands of the one person who can use it to make a difference.
He sits down on the edge of his bed, our old bed, but he won’t look up at me when he says the words.
‘You hadn’t forgotten, had you? You do remember what last Saturday was – what it was supposed to be?’
He looks ashamed of me. I hadn’t forgotten. Saturday, July 30, the day I was kidnapped, the day I decided to hold the final date of Five Parks, was our wedding day. I feel ashamed too. But I don’t have time for anyone’s feelings. I repeat what I said in the car outside the station.
‘Just do one more thing for me and you never have to see me again.’
I keep talking but he won’t answer. When I realise he won’t break his silence, I slip back out of his bedroom.
Sylvie saw what Michael saw – she ran into the theatre after him – but she doesn’t need convincing. She is on my side. But I want her behind me completely.
‘Read this,’ I say, shovelling my notepad under her blanket, down the side of the sofa, after Michael has gone to bed and I have pretended to do likewise. ‘I’m going to come back out here in thirty minutes – if you still want to help me, make sure you are dressed and ready.’
She whispers back. ‘I don’t need to read it. I believe you. I’ll be ready in two minutes. Just grab my car keys from the spare room when you’re coming back.’
I lean over the back of the couch and kiss her forehead, then go back into the room for her keys.
*
‘It’s not that he doesn’t believe you,’ Sylvie says, steering her Polo through the almost empty north London streets – it’s getting close to 2am – ‘it was just the shock of it. I was shocked too.’
She is trying to explain what it was like in that room – the room under the room – when she and Michael stumbled in to find Phillips.
‘He went in there to kill him. I really believe that. When we read that final post on your blog, where you wrote that Aaron had bundled you into his car, Michael turned. I’ve never seen him like that, angry, ready to destroy something. Or someone.’
I’ve never seen Michael like that either, but I imagine that’s how he looked the night he beat up my brother.
‘We had worked out where you were by then. We went to the Gaumont State Theatre but we couldn’t find a way in round the back – it was all boarded up – I don’t know how Phillips got you in. The front was locked, as you know. We had called the police and they sent one bloke – pathetic. And we called the theatre caretaker. His number’s on the front glass doors. Or it was, until you smashed them through.’
I am reminded of spraying glass all over Sylvie and Michael.
‘I’m sorry I got you,’ I say from the passenger seat, stroking my own face in an explanatory gesture. ‘I couldn’t wait another second. I had to get out of there. I had to breathe.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ says Sylvie, going through another amber light. ‘Just some war wounds. They’ll heal.’
Her words must remind her of where we’re heading and I know her smile has disappeared, even though her face is only lit fleetingly by jabbing street lamps and traffic lights. Her voice has changed.
‘He was a mess when we found him. Michael went straight in and grabbed him, and I pulled him back, but I didn’t need to pull too hard. As soon as Michael saw him, took it all in, he didn’t want to kill him anymore. Mainly because he thought he was already dead. And then he started coughing. Michael and I had a joint heart attack. He only had the strength to say one thing before he passed out again.’
I don’t really want to know the answer, but I ask anyway.
‘What did he say, Sylv?’
She spares me the pain, refusing to look across even though the shadows inside the car would hide her expression, if not her words.
‘He said: “Suzanne did this”.’
I’m not allowed to dwell on my anger.
‘Come on, Suze, get ready. We’re here.’
We dump the car in the multi-storey of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Sylvie insists on chaperoning and links my arm to keep the weight off my knee. But as we shuffle our way towards the main entrance, it is clear we are not the only out-of-hours visitors.
Down by the revolving doors is a team of tall men in black trousers and tops and white sleeves. The police are here. They form a small circle of intent, but as Sylvie and I freeze to the spot about forty yards away, the bind collapses as one or two officers peel away and go through the revolving doors. Their breakaway reveals a smaller figure at the centre, handing out instructions in a calm manner that matches her nondescript navy blue suit. Harding’s eyes dart around the men at her command, and for a horrible second I think she clocks us at the other end of the walkway, but her head keeps bobbing and weaving in all directions. She is like a trainer in a boxer’s corner telling him how to fight. And our fight is finished before it has even begun. There is no way we can get past that lot. Michael was right; Harding set me up.
She told me Miles was in the Royal Free because she knew I would try to get to him. To her, I would make such a move in a last-ditch effort to ensure his silence, given that she sees me as the kidnapper, when what I really want to do is give him a voice. I want to hear why he did it. I want to know why he is framing me. And when he is finished telling me the truth, I sort of want to rip his lungs out. But I am not going to get near him.
I anticipated there might be some kind of police presence at the hospital, but not on this scale. Harding is waiting for me, and it would do no good to meet her expectations.
‘I have to go,’ I whisper in Sylvie’s ear, digging my nails deep into her supporting arm.
‘Yeah, no shit.’
*
When we get back in the car, I tell her I want to go to bed, but I don’t mean Michael’s spare room in Islington; I want to return to my own place in Kilburn. The police won’t be there at this time and my flatmates will be asleep, so I can sneak in and curl up in my own corner of the world.
It isn’t much, and it’s far from the luxurious surroundings of Michael’s palace, where I used to be queen, but it’s mine. If I am to have one last night as a free woman, I want it to be in my own space.
A few weeks ago I shared that space with someone, a boy called Aaron. I want to remember that – staying up all night talking and learning new things about a new person and how their world has been different to yours and you never knew that was possible – not the cruelty of Miles Phillips.
He said he was going to kill me in that room under the theatre, and a large part of me did die in there. For the next few hours, my last few hours, I just want to embrace the old me. And tomorrow, when the dawn comes, I can say goodbye to my old world for good. Sylvie is reluctant, but she understands. Instead of driving east from Hampstead back to Islington, we go west towards Kilburn. I direct Sylvie through a longer yet less traffic light-ridden route, and not far from home I realise we are close to somewhere that might give me the answers I wanted from the mouth of Miles Phillips. So close. Close contact. When we delve into Cricklewood, I tell Sylvie to turn right rather than left, the quickest way to Kilburn. She doesn’t really understand properly until a few minutes later when she sees our updated destination on a sign, but by then we are almost there, drawn by some unknown force I’m not sure I can trust.
There is a sudden bounce in my step, in my good leg anyway, after Sylvie parks the car just below the entrance for vehicles, which is blocked by a row of pop-up metal nightwatchmen. These bollards obstruct the path of a car, but anyone can slip in between them on foot; this is the only park I know in London that is open twenty-four hours a day. I’m rolling through these useless metal sentinels so fast that Sylvie has to try hard to catch up. She whispers something at me, perhaps to tell me to slow down, interrupting the still of the north London night, but I’m not listening. I can’t slow down now – I need answers. And I think I might find them where this whole thing began – and where it ended – back in Gladstone Park.
46
Gladstone Park wasn’t meant to be.
The original plan had been to christen its lush slopes Dollis Hill Park after its location, but it was eventually named after four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone, a frequent visitor. He wasn’t the only famous face to fall in love with this particular patch of green. The area was described as a paradise by none other than Mark Twain after a stay in Dollis Hill House, perched at the north end of the park. The house was demolished in 2012, leaving only its foundations and the adjacent stables, which have themselves been converted into that bastion of modern London, the coffee shop.
I know all this because I was ready to write about it on my recap of Date #5, only I never had the chance.
It was in those former stables that I had sipped cappuccino with Aaron, not yet knowing he was Miles Phillips. And it is at those former stables where I stand now, clinging on to the railings and trying to use the moonlight to get a glimpse through the darkness into one of the coffee shop windows. A hand rests on my shoulder.
‘It’s a bit late for a coffee, Suze. I’m not helping you break in there.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not crazy,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to see if this might help jog something loose.’
I turn around in the glare of the building’s security light and catch Sylvie’s face, etched with fear. She is worried about me. Worried I have lost it. Worried that Michael is right; that it was me who kidnapped Phillips, not the other way round.
‘You don’t have to be here with me,’ I say, running a hand down her arm.
‘Tough. You’ve got me here to help you through it.’
I want to hug her and kiss her, but instead I stare back into the coffee shop window, trying to pick out the booth where Phillips carried out his plan. It’s just like being back in the room, peering into darkness for answers that will not come. The frustration brings tears.
‘Suze, maybe you shouldn’t have come here. It might not do you any good. Do you want to sit down?’
I link my arm in hers and let her walk me away from the coffee house and down the slope, past the tennis courts. I look over to the grass where Rob stood over me just a few days ago and think how Aaron rescued me, only to turn from saviour to tormentor. The wire mesh on the far side of the courts beckons the light from the terraced houses on the street opposite and the park becomes more welcoming.
We stroll down the winding footpath that swirls past the tennis courts, the skewed moonlit arch of Wembley Stadium ahead of us on the black horizon, and if the night was magically replaced by day, we would look like two companions on a carefree stroll.
At the bottom of the hill, on the same level as the courts on the other side of the wire, is a bench. My bench. I sit on the right side, where I sat with Rob, and I feel the crunch underfoot of broken metal. Pieces of his mobile phone are still scattered around the bench, like mines in a former war zone. The surrounding bushes and a few overhanging trees fight back against the house lights across the street, and the darkness is winning. But this time, unlike in the room, I have someone to fight it with me.
‘I’m sorry, Suze, I should have been here for you when you needed me,’ says Sylvie. ‘I’m sorry about Rob.’
I picture Rob’s once friendly face contorted with rage and then think of Johnny’s and Eric’s and David’s and Phillips’s, all of them driven to anger by me at one point. Phillips wrote that my readers believed I got what I deserved. He played me. And once he wakes up and finishes his game with Harding, he will win. Unless I can find something. He must have left some clue here in Gladstone Park. I will crawl over every blade of
grass in this park from now until dawn if I must. Sylvie could be in for a long night. Her apology makes me wince. I don’t deserve it.
‘I’m the one who should be sorry, Sylv. You weren’t here last Saturday to protect me because I pushed you away. I’m sorry I dropped the column without telling you. I’m sorry about all the things I kept from you.’
Sylvie reaches through the dark and pulls me into her warm neck.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispers. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s all over now. We don’t need men, remember?’
I wrap my arms around her and hold on tight. Sylvie emits a fake groan and whispers again.
‘There is one thing you didn’t tell me,’ she says. ‘Who is he?’
‘You know who he is . . . he’s Aaron. He’s Miles Phillips.’
‘No, not him. I know that. I mean, who was the guy in the hotel, the TV presenter? The one who lured you to the hotel suite. You told Rob about him. Rob told me. Rob called him Date #1.5.’
I slide out of our embrace and rub my eyes, like I’ve just been woken from an unplanned daydream.
‘I’m sorry, Sylv. I was ashamed. I didn’t tell you because I was worried you would think I was . . . well, a slut, basically.’
I try to dress it up by insulting myself, but I’m worried I have offended Sylvie by keeping another secret from her.
‘Oh, Suze . . . come on.’ Her voice is kind, but I know she is hurting. ‘You know I’ve always thought you were a slut, anyway.’
She strokes my cheek as she says it, almost missing my bowed head in the dark. I rub her arm to let her know her forgiveness is accepted.
‘He was no one. I don’t have time to think about him, I need to see if Phillips left anything behind in here, something I can use to clear my name. Will you help me look?’
‘Of course I will. But we need to get back soon, Suze. You need some sleep.’
I’m running on empty, she’s right, but I’m approaching the top of the hill, and if someone can just push me over the brow, then I will roll down the other side. Gladstone Park is full of hills, that’s one of the reasons it’s my favourite park in London. There’s always something new over the next slope, some new possibility, another awakening, a different life. I left it until the end of Five Parks for a reason. And I didn’t even get to enjoy it. I promise myself not to leave it until I find the answers I seek.
Five Parks Page 30