by Kate Helm
Contents
Suzanne, September 1997
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
September 2017
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copypright
‘Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices, there are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.’
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Suzanne, September 1997
The key turns in the lock.
Must be Pip, messing about. Again. Didn’t he learn anything from what happened before?
On my canvas, my little brother’s face is crinkled up in a Cheshire cat grin. And I bet it’s the same on the other side of my bedroom door.
‘Pip, unlock the door and let me out. You’re in enough trouble already.’
An hour ago, he was sheepish and sorry, but he can’t keep that up for long. I picture him on the landing, his paint-stained fist stuffed into his mouth, trying to keep quiet. He can never keep it up. Laughter always fights its way out. Silly Pippin.
I wait for the giggles but hear nothing.
I try to return to the painting I’m doing of him and Mum on Porthcurno beach, but the silence won’t let me. How long have I been in here? Long enough for the sun to move round and turn my room into an oven.
‘Pip, come on.’
Then I see it. My own key, on my window ledge. It can’t be Pip who locked me in because only my parents have the spare.
I put down my fine Filbert brush. Goosebumps spring up along my spine.
When I came up to my room, the house was full of the usual Saturday sounds drifting up the stairs: Pip strangling blue-black scales out of his recorder; Mum’s Moulinex grinding raw beef into pink, wormy mince; a DJ mumbling dedications on Radio 2.
But now there’s nothing.
I focus on my easel. I promised Miss Hamilton I’d try a landscape, but as usual, people crept into the picture. I love the stories faces tell, and all the colours I can use to bring them to life. Mum’s pale cheeks turned Madder Rose by the Cornish sunshine. her hair dripping with salty water. Pip’s eyes forming wicked crescent moons: he’d just told a joke. The sand is Winsor Yellow, the sky Cerulean, flecked with fat gulls in titanium white.
OK, my birds look as clumsy as dinosaurs but Miss Hamilton says practice makes perfect. She’s the best thing about moving to secondary school. She thinks I could be a proper artist one day.
I hear a deep, adult sigh from the landing. Not my brother.
‘Dad?’
‘Suzanne. Listen to me.’ My father’s voice is tight.
‘Pippin was only playing, Dad, I can save up for new turps—’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
Hope surges. Sometimes Mum manages to stop one of his moods developing.
‘So, we can still go to see Men in Black?’
He mutters something I can’t hear – as though he’s talking to someone else. Then, ‘Suzanne, this is important. You must promise me you won’t come out straightaway.’
‘Daddy, what’s wrong?’
‘Just be a good girl and wait fifteen minutes. No, twenty.’
‘Has something happened, Daddy?’
I’m nearly too old to call him that, but sometimes it calms him down.
‘Don’t try my patience, Suzanne.’ I hear anger in his voice. It sounds like Cadmium Red. ‘Promise me you’ll do as you’re told.’
‘I promise.’
My mouth has a strange taste, greasy like the oil paints.
A flash of silver appears at the bottom of the door, as he pushes the spare key to my bedroom through the gap. It rests on the dense threads of the new carpet, where Pip spilled the turps and Saturday started to go wrong.
‘Daddy, it’s OK. I already have a key.’
‘I know.’
‘But . . .’
I stop. My father always has a reason.
‘It’s ten past twelve now, Suzanne.’
‘Yes.’
Except my clock radio says 12:15. Mum sets it five minutes fast, because I’m allergic to mornings, like Snoopy on my duvet cover.
‘At half past – no earlier – unlock the door, and go straight downstairs, don’t open any doors. Go to number 26 and tell Len to phone 999.’
He and Len used to be friends. Now Dad says Len is an interfering old sod.
‘Are you hurt, Daddy?’
A pause. ‘No.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Don’t be, Suzanne. Repeat back what I said.’
‘At . . . at half past, I unlock the door and go downstairs and get Len to call 999.’
I step away from the easel. The floorboard creaks.
‘Suzanne! Don’t move.’ The anger deepens. Lamp Black.
I stop. Did he hear me – or is he watching through the keyhole?
‘That’s better. Good girl, Suzanne. I know I can trust you. And . . . remember, you’re my best girl.’
‘Daddy? Daddy, wait—’
Light shoots through the keyhole, falling on the carpet in the shape of a Ludo piece. He’s gone.
I listen to the house, but all I can hear is my own rapid breathing. I breathe through my nose to slow it down, like the asthma nurse taught me, but now the resinous smell of the spilled turps makes me dizzy.
Have I done something wrong? Telling on Pip, making Dad cross? He is never cross with me.
I close my eyes, focus on the sounds of the avenue: lazy birdsong; the clatter of two skateboards; a soapy sponge sloshing against Len’s be
ige Ford Sierra. But inside, nothing stirs. There are three other hearts beating in the house – four if you count our dog Marmite’s, and, of course, I do – but the silence is total.
I’m afraid.
I open my eyes. The red twenty on my clock radio turns to twenty-one. Nine minutes left.
Something is happening on the other side of the door. Voices on the landing, footsteps on the stairs. Male voices. Murmuring, disagreeing.
I strain to hear but the thump of my heart drowns them out.
‘Pip? Daddy?’ I call, even though it’s not his voice I hear. ‘Who’s there?’
Silence.
Dad has been acting strange for months. Has something happened? Images of what might be beyond that door fill my head.
I blink. Did I imagine the voices? I must have. There are no other sounds, not one.
On the carpet the metal key glows in the sun. Should I unlock the door now?
I mustn’t. I’m his best girl, and I promised.
And eight minutes won’t make any difference to whatever is on the other side.
Georgia, March 2017
1
I can’t remember this man’s name, but he kisses better than a stranger should. We stagger along the seafront, leaning against the turquoise railings to catch our breath before kissing again. After a while the gulls become bats, silhouetted against the blinding moon, and the pier winks at me over my stranger’s shoulder.
‘I’m up here.’
I point towards the square, wishing I lived further away, so we could kiss-walk some more.
‘Wow. You live in a wedding-cake house. I’ve pulled a rich chick.’
We climb the chequerboard steps, holding on to each other. Hungry. Every time I try to put the front door key in the lock, he kisses me again. But finally we’re tumbling into the flat, and . . .
Shit.
The door to the living room is ajar – he can’t go in there.
‘Not that way.’ I pull the door closed. It slams.
‘What are you hiding?’
‘Six children and a bad-tempered pit bull. So don’t go in there unless you want to be savaged while the kids sing “The Wheels on the Bus”.’
‘I’m a teacher. Kids don’t scare me.’
I step back, staring at this man I’ve brought home. I sensed he was safe, and just that bit drunker than I am. But can I be sure? I’ve covered enough cases where victims felt exactly the same thing.
Suddenly this seems a bad idea.
‘Look, I—’
‘Is that uncool?’ he says. ‘Are we meant to know nothing about each other?’
I laugh. ‘It’s not a quirk or anything. It’s just . . . simpler. I’m not looking for a relationship.’
‘Well, that’s a coincidence, because neither am I.’
He smiles, and I step towards him.
It’s OK. He’s OK.
Alcohol has softened my focus a little, but my instincts are always sound. This man is harmless.
He follows me into the bedroom. We kiss – sour apple, bitter hops – and begin to undress each other. It’s slow, frustrating, him fumbling with the buttons and zips of my stuffy courtroom clothes.
Without a word, we agree to undress ourselves. But my ochre blouse is still a battle, the too-tight buttoned cuffs catching at the end of my wrist. The fabric rips as I pull it past my knuckles.
‘In a hurry, are we?’ he says.
I answer him by unhooking my bra and letting it fall on the floor. Daring. Confident. It’s easier to pretend to be something you’re not with a stranger.
‘Race you!’
The teacher is wearing less than me, so wins the game, naked now while I’m still wrestling with my tights. He pushes me back into the bed, lies down beside me, and pulls my pants and tights off my legs in one inelegant, effective move.
‘You’re bloody beautiful.’
I pull him towards me. He reaches down to his discarded jeans for a condom. I like him more for not having to ask. But not enough to want to learn his name.
He pushes into me, and I don’t even care what my own name is anymore.
2
It’s two in the morning and I can’t sleep because of what’s hidden behind the living room door.
I move away from the teacher’s body. He runs hot as a radiator, and when the cool silk of the kimono touches my skin, it tingles.
I tiptoe into the front room and shut the door behind me.
The shutters are open, and I work by the violet moonlight. The canvas is still tacky, so I cover it with a light tarp, and manoeuvre it behind the folding screen. I pick up my acrylics and tidy them away too.
Sketches and notes litter the honeyed parquet floor. When I first saw this flat, the bay took my breath away: the view, and the clean light that pours through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But the floor space has proved just as valuable. Where Victorians used to dance and flirt, now my notes on killers, rapists, dealers and cheats jostle for position.
I tidy up quickly, glancing at each handwritten sheet to file it in the right place, but trying not to let the details linger. My work-in-progress shows a husband and wife screaming at each other like tetchy toddlers fighting in a sandpit, faces mottled pink with outrage.
I imagine for a second what the teacher would say if he came in now, saw the portrait. This grisly pair were briefly infamous, not even for fifteen minutes, but long enough that he might remember their bland, cruel faces. They were convicted for manslaughter of their infant son. It should have been murder. I wonder what the man in my bed would think: what kind of person paints pictures of the worst humanity has to offer?
I scoop up my original sketches, the court reports, the photograph of the child unlucky enough to be born with them as parents. In my portraits, I build up the layers, to reveal people as they really are, the secrets they hide even from themselves.
The sketches go in the dove-grey armoire, next to past cases. A cupboard full of people I’ve condemned with a smear of pastel, from a fire-starting teenager to a poisonous pensioner. I have to wrestle the cabinet doors closed: there’s too much crammed inside, I should have a clear-out.
As I straighten up, my thighs ache. I want to go back, wake the teacher up for more, forget about the pictures, the stories, the evil.
Too late. I’m already contaminated by what I’ve remembered about the case.
I fetch a glass of tap water, then climb into the huge armchair that always makes me feel child-sized. Through the window, the sea is indigo, separated from the sky by a ribbon of velvet-black horizon. Above it, something flashes white: a star, exploding millennia ago? Or perhaps just a gull’s wing catching moonlight.
My eyes are playing tricks on me from lack of sleep. I let them close.
3
‘Hello, sleepyhead. I made you coffee. I couldn’t find tea.’
The touch on my arm makes me flinch. But now I remember. It’s the teacher, so close that I can smell my toothpaste on his lips.
I open my eyes; outside, the sky is 5 a.m. grey. I know this time of day. But I am not used to sharing it with another living thing.
‘Hello.’ My voice is croaky. ‘Yeah, I don’t drink tea. It reminds me of funerals.’
A question creases the teacher’s forehead, but he stops himself voicing it. He has strong, open features that would be difficult to sketch. Usually, I can see through good-looking people, find a crack that shows their secret weaknesses. But this man is hiding nothing. It’s so rare that it’s remarkable.
‘Where did you hide the pit bull and the six kids, then?’ he asks.
‘In the cupboard. All my dirty secrets, locked away.’ I reach out to take my mug; steam rises from the black surface. ‘I’m Georgia, by the way.’
‘I remember. What’s my name?’
I blush. ‘Sorry. The cider . . .’
He laughs and holds out his hand to shake mine, his skin warm.
‘I’m Niall. Pleased to meet you.’ He sips his own c
offee, looks round the room. ‘It’s an amazing flat. And you live here on your own?’
I nod. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Kemp Town. This room is probably bigger than our whole flat. And there are five of us, sharing.’
‘I’m very lucky. I’m . . .’ I am about to tell him the usual half-lie, that I lost both parents as a child, but I don’t want the sympathy and the questions that’ll bring. ‘I came into some money, a couple of years ago.’
‘Good on you.’ He shrugs, to show he doesn’t resent my luck. ‘l ought to get off in a minute. Can’t show up at school in the same clothes. They notice everything, the kids.’ He grins. ‘Wasn’t exactly how I expected the Monday pub quiz to turn out.’
‘Me neither. A school night. Aren’t we terrible?’ A memory of last night passes between us. ‘But you can finish your coffee.’
He walks towards the window and I watch him take in the view: the sea, the promenade, and closest to us, the genteel garden square. No ball games. No barbecues. No dogs allowed. Someone should tell that young fox, brazenly crossing the grass.
The sky begins to lighten. Niall’s broad shape is silhouetted against the glass and part of me wants to reach for him again.
Movement on the grass catches my eye. The fox again? No. The shape is wrong. It’s a person. A child. A boy, dressed in the reddest pyjama top I’ve ever seen.
I catch my breath. Rough sleepers sometimes camp down there for the night, before they’re moved on, but there’s no sign of a tent or a sleeping bag. And the kid can’t be older than four or five, plus he’s only half-dressed, in pyjamas . . . No, it’s a child’s football strip.
Thank God Niall is here. A teacher will know what to do.
‘Should we go down there?’
Niall looks at me. ‘Sorry?’
‘The boy. He shouldn’t be on his own.’
‘What boy?’
I stand up and point towards the kid, statue-still in the centre of the lawn. His red clothes make him glow against the emerald grass. Who knows how many of my neighbours must have seen him already, but decided he was someone else’s responsibility. People make me sick.
‘I hope he’s not been there all night. He must be frozen.’
Niall leans forward, so close to the window his breath frosts the cool morning glass. Then he looks back at me, laughs nervously.
‘I can’t see anyone.’
I tap the window impatiently.