by S K Sharp
As easy as that.
I crash onto the sofa and grab them, flipping through them, one by one. I find the pictures from the beginning of the party and put them aside, then the wallet with the picture of me, Kat and Dec, and the one of Arty Robbins and Vincent.
Why did Mum only bring three when we met? Did she just find the fourth wallet later, when I told her that one was missing, or was she lying to me earlier?
The last wallet has the pictures I want. The first few are still from when Dec and I left the party. Then they change. There are suddenly fewer people in the background. The faces are red, the eyes more blurred. People are tipsy, if not outright drunk. I find a picture of Kat taken from the side as she’s cleaning glasses behind the bar, which has to be from after she and Gary came back from the park. She looks so young. Then another where she’s turned towards the camera, looking annoyed, maybe startled by the flash.
There’s a clock in the background. Two minutes to midnight …
I flick through the rest. Stolen portraits of couples whose faces I recognise but whom I never really knew, grinning at me, glasses raised; people who lived near the park, but who were never a part of my life. I see Jason Clay’s parents, which is as close as I can get to a name for anyone …
And then the photos stop, and the next two pictures are of the morning after: the pub empty except for the litter of the night before. Then a couple of a sunset; one of some crocuses; and a series of Kat in her school uniform, holding up her O-level results, looking like she’d rather curl up and die than pose for a picture.
No Mum or Dad. No pictures of Gary, of Dec or Dec’s dad, or even of Vincent or Dave or Dec’s mum.
No pictures of anyone I know, except Kat.
I go back to the start and look again, more carefully this time. A couple of shots after the photos of Kat, I see a figure in the background that’s probably Gary. I can’t make out his face, but I don’t know anyone else who wore a long coat like that. I start checking the background faces in the other pictures in case I can spot Dec, but the only person I find is Dave, right at the end, working the bar again.
Dec was probably upstairs. Even if he wasn’t with his mum, it was past midnight and it wasn’t like he knew anyone at the party, so of course he was upstairs. I’m stupid to think I’d find him. None of this proves anything.
I don’t understand. Someone doesn’t want me to see something – something that’s right here in front of me. But what?
I go through the pictures one more time, peering at each of the faces. Would I recognise Daniel Robbins if I saw him? Only if he looks like Dec or Arty, because I never met him in the flesh. But there’s nothing. Just the two pictures of Kat, the figure in the background that’s probably Gary, and the pair of photos that catch Dave working behind the bar.
Dave …
My eyes fix on him. He’s wearing different clothes. I remember perfectly well, but I ferret out the first wallet of photographs to be sure, and there he is. Dave, Chloe and Vincent, all in their green aprons. Vincent and Dave are wearing white shirts underneath and pale-blue jeans.
The light is bad in the two photographs from the end of the party and I can’t be sure of the colours. Dave is in the background and a little out of focus. But his trousers are dark, maybe even black, and the shirt he’s wearing is striped.
Detective Scott’s constant questions about what people were wearing … Did Declan Robbins change his clothes at any point, that you’re aware of?
I sit there, staring, trying to work out whether it matters. And then it hits me, and I feel so stupid. Kat even figured it out last Saturday in the graveyard …
Whoever killed Arty Robbins went down into that hole to cover him up. And it rained that morning, so they would have been covered in mud. Not just a few streaks on a jacket.
Whoever it was, they had to change their clothes before they went back to the Shelley.
Dave.
Mum was with Dave …
But only until Dad found them …
Mum has a spare key …
Oh Christ, it was Dave in my flat, not Gary.
My memory flashes back to 1985. Not to the night of the party but to the night a few weeks later when Mum and Dad said they were going out to the pictures, and then Mum came back on her own and Dad didn’t come back until three days later.
Susan, if you think you made the wrong choice—
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Craig … You want me to be honest? You just remember you said that.
The only time I ever heard Mum swear. I thought they were talking about Dave.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Your dad got to thinking it too.
What I thought was that she and Dave were having an affair. I’m pretty sure Dad thought so, too.
He knew something had happened. He knew both of us too well not to see it straight away.
Jesus! Mum knew, even back then?
Craig … it’s not what you think.
It finally makes sense. The tension in our house that summer – it was about Dave, only Dad and I both got it wrong. Mum and Dave weren’t having an affair; Dave was the one who killed Arty Robbins. And Mum was keeping his secret.
One stupid mistake and it nearly cost us everything. But we told him the truth in the end, and he let it go.
She told Dad? And he went along with it? Why? Why would he do that?
I’m scared. Horrified. Angry. I scoop the photographs up and then hesitate. I never liked ‘Uncle’ Dave after that summer, but now I realise I don’t know him at all. I don’t know what he’s capable of, but I do know he’s a murderer, and that he was the one who broke into my flat and attacked me.
All the years thinking Mum and Dad had been on the brink of divorce. All the years thinking that was what it looked like: the tension of a kept secret. All the years, and Mum never said a word, even when the police arrested Dec. She knows he’s innocent …
I fumble the photographs and spill them, as memory after memory of Dec crashes into me: our last year together – the last few months – everything I thought was going wrong because I believed I was seeing a repeat of what I’d seen between Mum and Dad, and I knew where that led. All the years of thinking Mum and Dad’s marriage was a sham when it wasn’t that at all. The secret eating away at them was a murder.
I take the two pictures with Dave in the background. No one will notice. All I have to do now is find Dec and bring him back, then talk to Detective Scott and show him what I’ve found, and then somehow make Mum tell me the truth—
Lights outside. The headlights of a car slowing down. Turning. Pulling into the driveway.
Mum and Dave.
I leap across the room for the light switch and then stop at the last second. I’m already too late. If they see the lights go out, they’ll know there’s someone inside. I have to get out, right now …
The car door opens.
The photographs! They’re scattered across the table. I stuff them back into their wallets and put them back where I found them as I hear footsteps and then a key in the front door. But now I’ve left it too late to dash through the kitchen and out the back without being seen. I dive into the darkness of the dining room instead. There’s another way out. The conservatory.
The front door opens and then I hear Dave’s voice. ‘Susan?’
Not Mum.
Just Dave.
21
Wednesday 12th February 2020, 9.30 p.m.
‘Susan? Hello?’
I’m hiding behind the dining-room table. It’s ridiculous. If Dave comes in and turns on the light, he’ll see me. If he does that, then I’m trapped. But there’s nowhere else.
I hear the slight rustle of his clothes in the hallway as he shifts from foot to foot.
‘Hello? Is somebody here?’
Why is he calling for Mum? Isn’t she with him? They were going out together, so why isn’t she …?
I hardly dare breathe. I hear him move, and I can’t tell if he’s coming this way.
He’ll see me if I make a break for the kitchen. But the conservatory has its own door into the garden.
I start to creep out from behind the table.
The scrape of something metallic rings from the lounge.
I freeze. Dave calls out again:
‘Whoever’s here, I’m calling the police!’
He moves back into the hallway. I scurry behind the conservatory desk, almost tripping over a waste-paper bin. I barely catch myself.
Dave is talking like he’s on his phone. ‘Number seventeen Byron Road. Yes … yes, I think so. I don’t know … The lights were turned on and … Yes, disturbed …’
Where’s Mum? Why isn’t she here? Oh my God, has he done something – has he done something to Mum?
I remember her face in the pub in Princess Street. The shock of it all. The horror. Did she realise, right there, that it was Dave who broke into my flat? That it was Dave who attacked me? What if she confronted him, like she confronted Arty Robbins?
Dim moonlight spills through the conservatory windows. My heart races. I look round for something I can use as a weapon. I look down and see inside the waste-paper bin … wallets of photographs.
I draw one out, slow and delicate. I open it. Even in the gloom I can see it’s one of the pictures from the Shelley. Inside the wallet, as well as the photographs, is an envelope full of negatives. The photographs from my flat.
‘Yes, thank you. You’ll be here in a minute? Thank you.’
You’ll be here in a minute? I was almost ready to believe he did call the police, but not any more. They never say that. There’s no one on the other end of that phone.
He’s at the doorway. I curl up beside the desk. The light comes on and I’m dazzled. I blink furiously, trying to clear my eyes. He’s just inside now; I can see him through the gap between the desk and the wall, brandishing a poker. There’s nowhere for me to go. All Dave has to do is take another two steps into the room and turn and he’ll see me and …
He takes a step.
Another.
He starts to turn.
I burst out of hiding and launch myself at the conservatory door, wrench the handle and shove. It’s locked and it doesn’t move. I whirl back, clutching the rubbish bin like it’s a shield, and grab a potted plant from the windowsill.
Dave stares at me. ‘Nicola? What—’
I throw the pot, plant and all. He’s too surprised even to flinch, but I miss and the pot smashes on the wall behind him. He lurches a step backwards into the hallway. I shove at the conservatory door again, frantically working the handle even though I know it’s futile. It’s locked and there’s no key, and the only way out is past Dave.
I whirl and throw another potted plant. This time he ducks out of the way. The pot smashes against the door frame.
‘Nicola!’
‘You killed Arty Robbins!’
He’s still holding that poker.
‘It was you in my flat!’
‘Nicola, wait …’
I run at him, wielding the bin like it’s a shield. I shout something – I don’t really know what. Dave raises the poker and yells back, but my head is too full of how he’s a murderer, how he killed Arty Robbins, how he took Dad’s place, how he was in my flat, how he attacked me, how I need to get away and how it’s all his fault Dec’s about to go to prison. I swing the bin and crash into him, because straight past Dave is the only way out. I careen off him and cannon into the wall behind, then lunge for the kitchen as he staggers. He grabs my arm, spinning me round.
‘Nicola!’
I rip free and stumble for the back door, flailing to keep my feet, grabbing at anything to stay upright, trying to reach the door, my balance all over the place. One swinging hand grabs the kettle, desperate for any purchase. I fling it as Dave comes at me. It hits him in the chest. He grunts.
‘Jesus Christ!’
I collide with the sink, stumble another step, crash into the windowsill beside the door and I’m at the door – almost there – but Dave’s still coming at me, so I grab the first thing to hand, Mum’s knife block, and throw it, knives and all. He cringes back, hands raised to protect his face. I go for the door and get it open, then an arm grabs me from behind, wrapping around me, pulling me back into the house. I hear someone roar ‘Fucking hell!’ and know it must be Dave, but it’s not the Dave I know, not a voice I recognise. He holds me and keeps pulling and pulling, and I’m screaming at him and I have both hands on the door frame, holding on for dear life …
‘Nicola, will you just—’
I let go with one hand, grab his arm and bring it to my teeth and bite. Dave howls and tries to pull away, and I tear myself free and run like I’ve never run before, helter-skelter down the back garden for the gate and the alley beyond. I look back and see him still coming after me.
‘Nicola! Wait! Nicola!’
Brambles rip at my legs but I don’t care. I crash into the abandoned shopping trolley and bounce off it and then I’m out of the alley and in the street – Shelley Street, with its lights and its Neighbourhood Watch, and its bus stop with its CCTV camera.
I’m free. Scratched and cut and bruised and battered, but free.
I know who killed Arty Robbins.
22
Wednesday 12th February 2020, 9.40 p.m.
I run past the Mary Shelley. I should probably go inside and call the police and stay where there are people, but I’m too afraid that Dave will follow me, so I keep on going through the park. When I can’t run any more, I speed-walk as fast as I can along the dark path beside the building site. It’s only when I reach the High Street and the station that I stop and call Mum, terrified she won’t pick up, that it’ll ring and ring and ring because she’s lying dead in a ditch or something …
She answers. ‘Nicola—’
‘Mum!’ I’m gasping between every word. ‘You’re all right! Where are you?’
‘Love, what on earth is the matter?’
‘Dave!’
‘Dave? What about him?’
‘Arty,’ I shout. ‘Arty fucking Robbins! Dave killed him. And you knew! You’ve always known.’
There’s a long silence at the other end of the phone. Then, very quietly: ‘Nicky, I don’t know what you think you—’
‘I went home, Mum. I was looking for … I let myself in with the key you keep in the flowerpot behind the garage. I found the photographs Dave stole. I saw what you were trying to hide. He changed his clothes. At the end of the party he’s wearing different trousers and a different shirt.’
‘Oh, Nicola, he probably just—’
‘Mum! I found Mrs Clarke’s negatives in the conservatory bin. He took them! He came to my flat and he took them, and he attacked me! And you knew it was him, didn’t you? This afternoon you knew it was Dave, and you saw how scared I was and you could have told me the truth, but you didn’t say a fucking word and I—’
‘Nicola!’
‘And then he came back and found me, and he tried to hit me with a bloody poker and I was terrified he’d done something to you.’
Another long silence.
‘Mum?’
Nothing.
‘Mum, where are you? I … I need to see you’re OK.’
Another silence, and then ‘Nicola,’ she whispers, ‘what happens now?’
‘What do you mean, what happens now? The police need to—’
‘Nicola, I’ll … tell you everything, but … please – please don’t call the police until we’ve had a chance to talk. It’s not what you think.’
‘How can it not be what I think? He killed Arty Robbins! Mum, where are you?’
‘I’m at the cemetery, love.’
‘The cemetery?’
‘I’m with your dad.’
I stand in the middle of the pavement, stunned. Mum went to see Dad’s grave? Tonight?
‘Your dad had a part in this too, love.’
There’s a line of taxis outside the station, waiting for the next wave of tired lat
e-night commuters coming out of central London. I jump into the nearest and tell the driver to take me to Saint Joseph’s. We get to the church and I walk round to the graveyard and there’s Mum, sitting on a bench beside the door into the nave, under a pool of light. I stand over her and throw the two photographs of Dave down beside her: the one from the beginning of the party and the one from the end. One of him in a white shirt and pale-blue jeans, the other in a striped top and dark trousers.
‘Nicky—’
‘Don’t!’ I recoil as she reaches for me. ‘I know what happened that night. You mouthed off to Arty Robbins about Kat. He followed you outside. He attacked you. Dave stopped it. You took Dave out into the park … Maybe you really were only trying to explain, but Dad was looking for you an hour later, and it can’t have taken a whole hour to tell Dave about Kat and—’
Mum starts shaking her head, but I’m not going to stop, not now.
‘Arty went looking for Kat. He went to her house but he couldn’t find her. He went home. I was there, with Dec. I hid under the bed while he punched Dec in the face. Then he left and went out into the park, still looking for Kat. You were out there, weren’t you? You and Dave. And Dave was in love with you, and so he lured Arty to the building site where it was dark and no one would see, and pushed him over the edge. Then he went down into the pit to hide the body, and by the time he was done he was covered in mud, so he went home and changed his clothes.’ I stab a finger at the photographs. ‘And that was why no one saw him until past one o’clock. And you knew! You knew all along. When did he tell—’
‘Stop!’ Mum gets up. ‘Just stop!’
‘Mum!’ I’m shaking. She reaches for me again, and again I flinch away. ‘I can’t—’
‘I wasn’t going to let Declan go to prison,’ says a voice. I spin round. There, on the edge of the darkness, stands Dave. I back away.
‘It’s not what you think,’ says Mum, but she doesn’t look at me.
Dave holds up his hands, a false gesture of peace. ‘Nicola—’
‘No,’ I shout. ‘No, don’t you come near me!’