‘I know,’ I say. I sink my face into my hands. ‘I know. I have talked around it for weeks, I know.’
‘Look,’ he says gently. My hands are still covering my eyes, and I feel him begin to move around the room, tidying up; an obvious diversionary tactic but one I’m grateful for nonetheless. ‘Would it help to hear of all of the people I have been through this with? You’re in safe hands, I promise.’
‘Are any of them in prison?’ I say sadly.
He puts the papers on the shelf and gets out a new, blank pad, a deliberate gesture maybe. He sits and leans forward, looking at me, his elbows on his knees. ‘Going over it – it’s a necessary evil, okay? Like – like the dentist. And, yes, some of them are in prison.’
I give a sardonic laugh. ‘God.’
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I have most of the information, and now we just need to … to shape it.’
‘Into a statement,’ I say sadly.
He leans forward and gets file number one. He has four of them now. They seem to multiply each time I visit. Four teal bundles, pink ribbons wrapped around them, tied in careless bows by Jason himself, who seems to have no secretary, no assistant.
‘I think our strategy should be that we just tell your version of events to the court, at the trial,’ he says, pointing to the pad where the statement will rest. ‘Play as straight a bat as possible. Exactly what happened, from start to finish. Okay? No games, no narrative. No lies.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Yes, I understand that.’
The crime. The fallout. Everything that followed. Everything that happened following it. ‘The trial is in two weeks,’ he says. ‘So we need to get on it.’
27.
Then
Cathy
It’s the middle of the night. Cathy is sitting with her back against Frannie’s headboard, working on her phone, doing stuff that doesn’t really need doing.
They’re lit up only by the rolling Italian news. Their legs are the exact same length, bare feet completely level with each other. Their skin flashes bright red from the pictures on the television.
‘Not sure I’ll ever sleep again,’ Frannie says, rubbing at her forehead. She’s wearing a t-shirt that says RIOTS NOT DIETS. She’s fiddling with the baby monitor in her hands, periodically gazing down at Paul’s sleeping form. ‘This reminds me of after-school,’ she says, leaning her head back against the wall.
Cathy, Joe, Frannie and Rosie would let themselves into their house each afternoon, around four. They’d walk back together, along the river, then through the fields, up the hill and home. Frannie was always late. Joe walked too quickly. They complained about these same things to each other, most days. ‘God, slow down,’ Frannie would huff to Joe, who would turn and walk backwards, laughing at her. In some ways, not much has changed. Only a few weeks ago, they stayed up chatting in Frannie’s kitchen until half past one in the morning. Cathy and Frannie painted their nails. Joe drank six beers.
‘Granted, we didn’t watch Italian news after school,’ Frannie says with a laugh. She takes a sip of black coffee. Frannie is a huge coffee drinker, at all times of day. It doesn’t seem to affect her at all. Cathy stares at her sister’s profile, the perfect features, straight nose, eyes that turn up at their corners. Even her fingers are attractive, slim but not bony. She looks like Rosie.
Rosie was the original baby of the family, two years younger than Frannie. She died when she was eight. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. A rare case of a child, and not a baby.
Just that, Cathy thinks, looking at the delicate slant of Frannie’s nose. A rare event. Bad luck. Just the total and complete devastation of their family, and everything they knew.
In the post-Rosie world, their parents became strange and difficult. Their mother risk-assessing – she once banned them from going on bouncy castles – their father repressed. Rosie’s room is still completely preserved, photos of her on the wall that stop aged eight. The month following her death, some photographs of her came back, newly developed, and those ended up framed, too.
In the wake of this, the remaining siblings began to forge ahead, alone, three siblings who wanted to be together, no matter what.
‘I can’t believe how little I’m sleeping,’ Frannie adds. Cathy sometimes thinks Frannie lucky. She was ten when Rosie died, and she hardly remembers her. She hardly knows what they have all lost. Cathy, who was thirteen, and Joe, who was fifteen, remember almost everything.
‘Let’s just turn this off,’ Cathy says. ‘We’ll only see something about him again.’ Already, the footage of the sniffer dogs has cycled around twice, a sea of black and tan on the horizon, a forensics team accompanying them, eerie, tall, white figures among the dogs.
Frannie mutes it but doesn’t turn off the picture. She finishes her coffee and puts the mug in between her shins on the bed. Her phone is charging on the windowsill, and Cathy can see it lighting up, even at this hour. Why are all her friends awake?
‘Why do you think he had that piece of paper?’ Cathy asks her, rather than asking her about her friends – and how she came to make so many of them, so easily.
‘I mean,’ Frannie says, reaching for the mug again and tossing it from one hand to the other as she thinks, ‘he was a police officer.’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘It could have been anything, couldn’t it? A safety inspection of our villa? A hire-car thing? We have no idea.’
Cathy shifts her position on the bed, crossing her legs underneath her. Frannie unconsciously rests an elbow on Cathy’s knee. Despite the sombre situation, Cathy still manages to locate her old anxieties and their counterpoints. That Frannie is closer to Joe than to her. That she finds Cathy incomprehensible, boring, weird. That elbow says differently, and Cathy pats it.
‘What if he was investigating someone?’ Frannie says.
‘Who?’
‘Well, not you or me.’
‘Right?’
‘Joe? Or Lydia? What if Joe went after Will and – you know how he can be –’
‘I know,’ Cathy says. ‘Maybe Joe got in more trouble the other night with Lydia and that man than he said.’
‘Yeah. Maybe we could ask him. Where is the document?’ Frannie says, extending a hand to Cathy.
‘In my room.’
‘Let’s look at it again. Tomorrow. With him, when we’ve all slept. See what he does.’
She stares straight ahead, at the television, but her features look troubled. Cathy can tell she is going over whether Joe is involved in some way more than he says. She looks gaunt tonight. The sockets of her eyes are clearly defined, incongruous against the holiday tan, the highlights and shadows exaggerated by the monochrome glow of the TV.
Joe’s in the shower down the hall. He can’t sleep either. They can hear the water hitting his body, collecting and running off in thick ropes of water.
‘Look,’ Frannie says suddenly, staring at the television. Cathy turns her attention away from Frannie’s cheekbones and to the screen.
Omicidio. Cathy’s body reacts to the word before her mind can translate it. She sits forward, looking at the English subtitles. They scroll past, painfully slowly, like the football news on Ceefax they would sometimes watch after school together.
Police open homicide investigation due to forged cashpoint transaction.
Cathy feels the veins in her skull pound. She puts her head in her hands as the room dips and spins around her. ‘What?’ she whispers.
She raises only her eyes to the screen, keeping her head low, watching the subtitles play out as an Italian police officer speaks. Frannie has got off the bed, is standing in the corner of the dim room. Cathy can hardly see her.
We have reason to believe Will McGovern died in suspicious circumstances, though no body has yet been found, the scrolling white text reads. The person who knows the whereabouts of Mr McGovern has gone to great lengths to make it appear as if he is missing, not dead. A failed attempt at a cashpoint has come to light due to the fast actions of
HSBC Bank. The cadaver dogs picked up the scent of a dead body nearby. We now believe his killer is trying to make it look like Mr McGovern is alive.
Cathy’s entire body feels as dry as a desert. Her mouth. Her eyes. Like somebody has sucked all of the moisture out of her, leaving only a husk in place. Frannie’s bedroom door opens, and they both tense. It’s Joe, with a pink towel wrapped around his waist. ‘Can I get changed in here?’ he says, clutching a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a grey t-shirt. ‘Lydia’s fast asleep. And I don’t want any more fucking questions.’
‘Sure,’ Frannie says faintly, staring at the television and going to sit back on the bed.
Cathy looks at her. As her eyes adjust to the dark, she sees that Frannie has raked her hair back from her forehead, her hands now holding it there, elbows out to the side, her body otherwise rigid.
‘What’s happened?’ Joe says immediately.
Cathy and Frannie exchange a glance. ‘What’s happened?’ he says again.
‘Look,’ she says, pointing to the television. ‘The cadaver dogs – the cashpoint …’
Cathy goes to stand by the windowsill, looking out. As she turns back to look at Joe after a few seconds, breathing deeply, she sees a crucifix right above the centre of his head. An oak-coloured cross. Another silver Jesus. Two red spots on his hands. She can’t stop staring at it.
Joe pulls on his t-shirt. It clings to the wet parts of his skin, the grey material turning to black inkblots.
Cathy takes a breath. In a low voice, she says, ‘They know he’s dead.’
‘Fuck,’ Joe whispers, staring at the breaking news. He’s still in the pink towel and his t-shirt. He glances over his shoulder to the door, which sits ajar, checking nobody is out there. ‘We need a new plan.’
‘No, we don’t,’ Cathy says firmly. ‘We need to stop. Just stop.’
‘But –’
‘Look – let’s just …’ She crosses the room to him, a hand on his damp arm. ‘We need to stop.’ She takes a breath. ‘We could stop.’ She turns around to look at Frannie, still looking at the television, the whites of her eyes shining exactly as they did on that night, animalistic, flashing. Joe looks at her too. Cathy stares down at the windowsill, thinking. As she does so, Frannie’s phone, charging there, lights up again in front of her. Frannie is in almost constant contact with her best friend, Deb, so Cathy isn’t surprised to see a waiting message.
Frannie met Deb when they were twenty-one, when she brought in her Manchester terrier for a consult. Cathy observed in real-time how easily her younger sister made a friend. An open question or two, and then they were giggling as they tried to weigh the dog on the scales. Numbers were swapped and that was that, a best friend arrived; something Cathy has never had. Deb goes over to Frannie’s most Tuesdays – by far the worst day of the week, Frannie says – and often, as Cathy falls asleep at home, she can hear their high laughter through the walls or the open windows.
But it isn’t from Deb. It’s a branded text message. ‘Thank you for contacting Jason Granger Law …’ is previewed on Frannie’s screen.
Cathy blinks. Jason Granger Law? She averts her gaze from Frannie’s phone, gets her own phone out, then googles him.
Jason Granger, his website says. Birmingham Criminal Lawyer. Cathy stares at it.
Why has her sister got a lawyer’s reply text? Is it her own lawyer? Before she can persuade herself otherwise, Cathy adds Jason’s number to her contacts, for her to investigate, feeling guilty about yet another thing: she would be mortified if Frannie looked at Cathy’s own phone, at her message to a man she went on a date with two weeks ago, who, she now knows, doesn’t want to see her again, after Cathy texted to no reply (twice). She knows why: she answered his questions too awkwardly in the pub, was probably boring too about animals, maybe spoke too much about Macca, her rescue bulldog.
Cathy stares as Frannie and Joe argue. Cathy is motionless, thinking only of this secret, this secret Frannie has chosen to keep from her.
She can’t help but feel, in the dim light of the villa, that they are turning on each other, slowly, so slowly you might not even notice it, like three warships that started facing forward and are now facing backwards, without anyone on board feeling any movement at all.
‘How haven’t they found the body, if they know he’s dead?’ Joe says, looking at her. Even after a shower, he still smells of cigarettes, has brought the smell into the room with him.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. If she is going to ask Frannie about it, she should do it now. But something stops her. The cards have been dealt, and it only remains to play the game, to keep them close to her chest.
‘Are they going to find it?’ Frannie asks. Cathy’s gaze swivels to her.
‘I don’t know that either,’ Cathy says, rubbing at her forehead. She pauses, thinking. ‘You didn’t send that text, did you?’ she says to Joe.
‘What text?’
‘The hotline. Tell me you didn’t send that text.’
Joe tenses, turning only his head to her.
‘What?’ Frannie says. It’s a sharp what, like a lemon.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ he says tetchily. ‘I said I wasn’t going to.’
Lydia appears in the doorway in her pyjamas, hair piled on the top of her head. ‘What text?’ she says.
28.
Lydia
Lydia wakes in the night to the sound of voices and experiences a familiar sensation: loneliness within a crowd. That’s sometimes how it is with the Plants, especially on holiday. They don’t even mean to leave her out, but they do.
Joe’s side of the bed is empty. She checks the clock: 1.32 a.m. She listens intently. She can hear all three of them, talking animatedly.
Moonlight shifts outside, illuminating the bed with two moving squares of bright white.
She gets up, puts on a dressing gown and ventures out of the bedroom. Where is he? It’s late even for him. He did the same thing last night too. And yesterday when he was in the bathroom, clearly with his sisters, discussing something, and he dismissed her like she was an annoying child. She asked him four times what had been going on, and received all sorts of nonsense in response. A work crisis, which he wouldn’t elaborate on, then something to do with his mother …
Lydia had to learn, throughout her twenties, how to stand up for herself. No one else is going to, she realized very slowly, as she – with the help of the therapist – phased out problematic and toxic friends who would say things like, ‘Does it bother you that you’ve gained weight?’ Lydia hadn’t known any better when she made them.
And so Lydia decides, as she rearranges her hair on top of her head, that she needs to draw a line here, now, tonight. She’s on this holiday too. She deserves to be treated as such.
She hears voices as she moves along the corridor. It’s stone, cold underfoot, like a crypt. She can feel its imperfections on her bare feet, some parts rough, some parts undulating and uneven. It smells like an old church, this villa. Lydia always forgets until their holiday rolls around again. Even when they’ve just cleaned it, it still has that kick. Wood, old tombs, ancient incense.
Cathy is speaking, Lydia thinks, her low, calm register combining with Joe’s raised one in Frannie’s room. She stops, feet getting colder the longer she stays still. She knows she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the opportunity has presented itself, and Lydia has been fascinated by the Plants since she was fourteen. Even though she is now a Plant herself, her curiosity has hardly waned. Their glossy, dark hair, their athletic limbs, their closeness.
Maria and Owen – their parents – served full English breakfasts on weekdays before school with sunshine-bright orange juice in actual jugs. Their pink landing carpet was always hoovered in perfectly even stripes. Lydia used to think back to her own home, mouldy windowframes and unpredictable atmospheres, and wince. And now here they are, that perfect family, uninhibited, unaware they’re being overheard. Lydia feels suddenly strange, like a voyeur or a creep.
&nbs
p; ‘Yes, they can,’ she hears Joe say in Frannie’s room. The orange-juice jugs disappear in Lydia’s mind like popped balloons. This family, she has learnt over the last few years, is not perfect. Frannie is of the opinion Cathy and Joe are unhappily ambitious. Joe and Frannie think Cathy is emotionally stunted. Cathy and Frannie think Joe’s temper is too quick and too hard. They form tessellating circles, interacting in different ways, confusing ways to Lydia, who once thought love was black and white.
Lydia stays in shadow in the corridor. The door is ajar. Joe’s whispering. She can barely hear him. Underneath whatever he’s whispering, she can hear the tedious hum of the news. The missing man. She’s glad it isn’t a woman who’s gone missing, at least, not here, not on her holiday.
‘Tell me you didn’t send that text,’ Cathy says loudly. Lydia takes another step forwards, almost walking into the light. Cathy never shouts. Never raises her voice. Is never anything but calm, composed, put together. Before either of them can say anything more, Lydia takes a step forward. She hesitates, just once, at the door. Her fingers illuminated but the rest of her in darkness. Something in Lydia’s gut is telling her that she can’t ever return to this moment, her fingertips pushing into the light, against the point of no return.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ Joe says and, despite herself, Lydia feels herself sag with relief. ‘I said I wasn’t going to.’
‘What text?’ she says, and steps into the light. She is looking at her husband, but she is absorbing too the atmosphere between him and his sisters.
Cathy has her shoulders up. She catches Lydia looking and crosses her arms against her body. She glances at Joe, then seems to make a decision. Immediately, she strides towards the door, glancing at Lydia as she walks past her. Time seems to slow down as she does so, like they are two ballroom dancers, faces side by side, bodies heading in different directions. Something is communicated from Cathy – the queen of subtext – to Lydia. ‘Sorry,’ Cathy mutters. Somewhere between excuse me and an apology. Lydia stands aside and lets her go.
That Night Page 12