Sofie nodded in agreement, guilt also bubbling away in her core.
‘What kind of world is it where someone as lovely as Jessie can’t walk home alone, without getting hurt? We have to look after her from now on, Lauren. We shouldn’t have split up and all we can do is be thankful things weren’t worse.’
Lauren pulled herself up to perch on the edge of the sink, her mood unreadable. She looked as though she were in a sort of trance for a couple of minutes, before spotting Jessie in the doorway. She darted over to the sofa and plumped the cushions.
‘The letting agents are bringing a key over in the next hour,’ she explained, helping Jessie to lie down. ‘Would you like the radio on?’
‘No,’ Jessie whispered hoarsely. ‘No, I don’t want any noise.’
The door rang and Sofie went to answer it. Jessie winced.
Moments later, Henry walked into the kitchen, swivelling his car keys. Seeing Jessie lying forlornly on the sofa, his eyes widened.
‘Christ, whoever did that must be a right nasty piece of work.’
‘Jessie, maybe you’ll be more comfortable in my room until the key arrives?’ Sofie started. ‘Henry, can you give her a hand? I’ll make us all some herbal tea and bring it straight up.’
Henry stuck his thick forearm out in front of Jessie, who used it to steady herself. She felt dizzy again, from moving too quickly. As he gripped her shoulder, she flinched. His touch stirred up the husk of a memory, which quickly evaporated again. Lauren followed behind.
‘One step at a time, babe,’ she said softly.
A few cups of tea later, Craig rang the doorbell and handed over an envelope containing the spare key. Lauren unlocked Jessie’s bedroom for her, then watched as she crawled under the duvet. Although she was shattered, Jessie couldn’t sleep right away. She tried her usual trick of taking a few sertraline tablets, then tiptoed downstairs, desperate to avoid bumping into any of her flatmates, to swipe her phone off the top of the microwave where it had been left charging. It was hot from being plugged in for too long.
Back in the safety of her bedroom, she thought about calling Priya but didn’t feel strong enough to relive what had happened again, in any detail, so soon. Instead she sent a text.
I was mugged last night, was pretty drunk so don’t remember much. Been checked out and am back home now. Are you around later? Would love some company, I feel so broken.
Next, she logged on to Facebook. A red notification told her she had a new message: a message from Magda Nowak, sent in the early hours of the morning, not long after she’d disappeared from the club. With everything else that had happened, Jessie had clean forgotten about bumping into her. The message was simply an apology for the delay in replying to Jessie’s own effort at making contact and asked her to meet at the Starbucks on Western Road this coming Wednesday at 6.30pm. Magda had signed off with the words ‘Take care’. Jessie struggled to remember their conversation. The music had been so jarring and the concussion was screwing with her brain, but the look of fear in Magda’s eyes was still crystal clear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Another full day passed before Jessie emerged from her bedroom early on Sunday evening. At some point her nightmares, where the incident replayed itself on loop, became difficult to separate from reality and she’d taken another dose of anti-anxiety medication, along with some mild sleeping tablets left over from a plane journey to lull herself back to sleep. That feeling of being watched and followed was so hard to shake. Underneath the oversized T-shirt she’d been sleeping in, her back felt clammy. Her legs had started to itch from being in bed for too many hours and while her brain still felt slow, some energy had been restored to her body at least. It was time to get up and face the world. She sat at her dresser and looked at the blood crusted into her hair. One of her eyes had a purple bruise underneath and her knees were covered in plenty more. Her palms wept where the skin had been torn away by the rough ground. Jessie checked her phone and was dismayed to see that Priya hadn’t responded. Probably had enough of putting me back together, she thought, probably thinks it’s my own fault for getting too drunk and wandering off. But it wasn’t like Priya not to get back to her, especially after something like this.
I’m scared it might have been something to do with Matthew. Do you think it could have been him? Should I tell the police? All I’ve said to them so far is that I can’t remember anything and don’t want to pursue the case she texted again, in a last ditch attempt for a response.
Jessie pulled on her tracksuit bottoms and another baggy T-shirt, then brushed her teeth in the bathroom. The extractor fan groaned overhead. More than anything, she wanted things to feel normal again. She wanted her biggest concern to be that Lauren was forever leaving pencil shavings on the table or that Marcus’s music kept her awake, echoing up through the floorboards. But really, nothing was normal any more – she’d been attacked and left abandoned in the rain. Her heart rate quickened, reliving it. Yet the thought of following up again with the police, who’d taken a basic statement from her at the hospital, wasn’t appealing either. “Grievous bodily harm” was how they’d referred to it. She didn’t want to have to sit in a stark interview room and give a detailed description of everything she’d drunk that night, how she’d downed so many shots she could barely remember her own name. They’d only tell her that she shouldn’t have put herself at risk, surely. Jessie also knew she hadn’t seen or heard anything that might help the police identify whoever it was who had snuck up on her from behind, struck her hard and grabbed her bag. Snatches of images came to mind then disappeared again before she could properly take hold of them and investigate. It was best, she decided, to file the assault away in a box at the back of her mind, something that she’d got used to doing during and after the trauma of Matthew: the flash of pleasure in his eyes when she had sobbed on their living room floor, the sex she had stopped wanting to be a part of years ago – all of that had been pushed as deep down as possible, along with the searing embarrassment she felt for having stayed so long. It had taken a long time and a lot of therapy to realise that, just because Matthew had never punched her square in the mouth, what he’d done to her still counted as abuse. She missed her counsellor back in Chesterbury, who undoubtedly would have something reassuring to say. It was definitely time to find a new one in Brighton.
When she reached the living room, Jessie was glad to see Lauren spread out on the sofa in her usual position. On the round table was something new. A large translucent bowl containing pebbles, brightly coloured mock coral and four fish. Hearing her walk in, Lauren sat up.
‘How are you feeling? We’ve all been really worried,’ she asked with a pained expression.
Two of the goldfish were swimming proudly near the surface of the water, which vibrated slightly from the filter pump. Another was hidden inside the silk leaves of an imitation plant and the fourth was merely floating at the bottom of the tank, millimetres away from the gravel, looking lost. The soothing motion of the swimming left Jessie captivated.
‘I’ve been better. I owe a huge thanks to you and Sofie for waiting there at the hospital and getting me home,’ she replied, taking a glass out of the cabinet and filling it with orange juice.
It even hurt to lift the carton.
‘I wouldn’t leave you, of course not. I’m glad you’re up and about,’ Lauren pointed at the bowl. ‘I thought they’d be a nice little addition to the family. They’re supposedly very calming to have around. Given that there’s one for each of us, Sofie said we should name them after ourselves, but I’m not sure. What do you reckon?’
The fish that had been lurking in the plant swam out, revealing black freckles on its tail.
‘She said that one looks like Marcus and has been calling it Marcus Junior slash MJ all day,’ she continued, laughing then regretting it.
It felt too soon to laugh about anything.
‘He does a bit. I suppose that makes me the one with the bewildered look on its face, sinking a
t the bottom.’
As if suddenly aware it had an audience, the fish began whirling around in circles, showing off flashes of silver mixed into its orange scales. It was the smallest in the tank by far.
‘Oh, Jess. Do you want to talk about it? Have you thought about talking to the police any more about what happened?’
Lauren stared at her intently, waiting for an answer.
‘No. I’m not going to do that,’ Jessie replied firmly. ‘They said at the hospital that they’re scouring for CCTV footage and have asked me to give a more detailed statement, but I told them I don’t want to. In all honestly, I just want to forget about it and move on. I’m not even going to tell my parents. They’ll only worry.’
Lauren wasn’t sure how to react, so instead just stood up and walked over to Jessie, hovering awkwardly in front of her. Lauren looked tired, her white-blonde hair was scraped up into a harsh bun, ageing her. For the first time Jessie wasn’t envious of her face. The tough-girl mask had slipped and the raw, human version of Lauren was poking out – in a way it was reassuring, that even she had been rocked by the attack. It made Jessie feel less alone.
‘Did you manage to get a glimpse of the scumbag that did it?’
‘Nothing. Another reason why trying to prosecute would be pointless.’
A red container of fish flakes had been put on the windowsill next to the spider plant. Lauren unscrewed the lid of the food, pinching some between her hands, and scattered it above the bowl; together they watched as the fish all rose to the top, their greedy mouths opening like small tunnels.
‘They’re meant to be good for anxiety and depression, you know,’ Lauren eventually said. ‘Fish, I mean. That’s apparently why they often have them at doctors surgeries.’
Her comments were met with silence. Jessie’s mood was extremely low, especially now that Priya was giving her the cold shoulder too.
‘How about we order a curry?
‘I can’t, Lauren, I don’t have any money. I need to sort out some emergency cash until I get my new bank card.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get this. My treat,’ Lauren tried again.
Realising she hadn’t eaten in almost two full days, despite the girls having left yoghurts and sandwiches on her bedside table, along with bottles of water she’d merely sipped at, Jessie nodded.
‘Thank you, that’s really nice of you. Will you be around all night? We could start a new Netflix series together – I just want to stare at a screen and distract myself.’
‘I’ll be around whenever you need me to be, babe,’ Lauren replied, squeezing her arm.
The following morning Jessie was torn between calling in sick and forcing herself to head into the office as normal. After a long internal debate, she decided to allow herself a few more days of rest – the concussion still made her feel slightly drunk and her hands hadn’t stopped shaking – and left a voicemail on Pamela’s mobile saying she’d been struck down by a virus, but that, hopefully, she’d be back in a few days. Old habits seemed to die hard when it came to admitting what she’d been through. Jessie needed more time before she was ready to sit next to a stranger on the bus or make idle chat with Juliette and Cheryl. She also wanted to think about whether or not meeting with Magda was a good idea. Lying in bed for hours on end, her mind had explored every avenue as to why the attack might have happened. There was a very strong possibility that it was simply coincidental she’d been mugged the same night as meeting the former Maver Place resident with a bad reputation, but a definite worry still lingered that maybe it wasn’t. Would meeting Magda on Wednesday to return the locket be walking right into the arms of trouble? She wished Priya wasn’t ignoring her texts, so that she could ask for her advice or maybe even get her to come along too.
Jessie spent the whole of Monday gazing blindly at her laptop in bed, pausing once to put a frozen pizza in the oven, feeling too lethargic and dizzy to cook anything requiring effort. The row of dissolving stitches in her head was beginning to itch, but she was terrified to touch them. More than anything, she was desperate not to have a scar of the incident, which would serve as a permanent reminder that almost nobody could be trusted. She thought of her family back home in Chesterbury and imagined being back in her childhood bedroom, safe from all the turmoil that adulthood seemed to bring with it. Only, in reality, she knew that if she were to buy a train ticket home, she’d spend the entire journey worrying that Matthew might happen to be at the station or worse, waiting outside her house again. What if he was outside the flat right now?
After finishing another season of Queer Eye, Jessie tapped in the address for the same housing website she’d found Maver Place on. Instead of searching for Brighton flats, she browsed for cottages in the Scottish countryside, desperate for an image she could squirrel away for the next time she needed a fantasy to soothe her overactive imagination. Something to replace the footsteps she’d heard before hitting the ground. Brighton was supposed to be a fresh start for her, yet had been nothing but a curse since she arrived. Or maybe it was the flat that was the problem, not the city. Right now, running as far away from everything as possible, to somewhere in the Highlands with a small population, none of whom knew her name, and becoming a recluse felt tempting. She could still stay friends with Sofie and Lauren; they could FaceTime or come to visit her whenever they liked. Anything felt better than spending five days a week in an office that smelled of stale coffee and toner, and the majority of her nights in a cramped kitchen on a sagging orange sofa. Instead, she could go for long, meandering walks. She could take in crisp air and work in a bookstore or library, somewhere wholesome and satisfying, where people spoke calmly and quietly.
On Tuesday morning Lauren knocked on the bedroom door, as she’d taken to doing every few hours, and offered Jessie a cup of tea. She declined.
‘I’m off to the studio now,’ Lauren said, ‘but just call if there’s anything you need and I can come straight back.’
She placed a paper bag containing five Sainsbury’s milk chocolate cookies on Jessie’s bedside table and kissed the top of her head.
‘You’ll get sores if you don’t leave this bed soon, doll.’
Her voice was a little higher than usual.
‘I know I’m wallowing,’ Jessie mumbled. ‘I’ll be going back to work tomorrow, though.’
‘You’re more than entitled to wallow. Although for what it’s worth, I don’t think you are.’ Lauren patted Jessie’s hand as she spoke. ‘I know it’s been a tough time lately, even before the attack, what with Rob and that horrible ex-boyfriend of yours, but I just want you to know I’m here for you. We’ve always got each other, haven’t we?’
Jessie squeezed her hand back.
‘Life may not be perfect or even good right now, but I’m glad to have you as a friend.’
Lauren smiled and closed the door softly on her way out. A few minutes later, Jessie opened her laptop and replied to Magda’s message.
Tomorrow at 6.30pm is fine with me. I’ll see you then.
After all, they’d be meeting in a public place – even if Magda was behind the attack, she could hardly do anything else in a well-lit coffee shop with other people in close proximity. Jessie’s phone buzzed and she snatched it out from under her pillow, hoping it would be Priya, but was disappointed to see it was only Marcus, asking everyone to transfer him £7.58 for the Internet bill. Thinking of Marcus, she pictured him in his red tartan pyjama bottoms. It jogged something in her mind. A memory was fluttering up to the surface and she tried hard to let it push through. Had she seen the flash of something red the night she was attacked? Before she could solidify the thought, it vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Having spent so many days cooped up indoors, Jessie was grateful when Lauren offered to walk her to the bus stop. It was her first day back at work since the attack and her stomach churned at the thought of leaving the safety of the flat. Large flakes of snow fell over the city as they strode on in silence, feet hitting the gr
ound simultaneously. The snow vanished as soon as it met the road, but had built up on car windows and grassy spots. Jessie’s legs ached from lack of use as they trudged up the hill.
‘You’ve got this,’ Lauren said, hugging her at the bus stop, before heading off to the studio. ‘You’re being so brave but call me if you start feeling overwhelmed.’
Jessie forced a smile and waved goodbye. She was apprehensive about returning to work so soon, but knew her mind needed to focus on something other than the attack and Matthew, the man who had crushed her heart until she swore it had almost stopped beating. Crushed heart and crushed skull. Crushed spirit. At this point even laborious paperwork would do as a distraction.
Lauren, and Sofie too, had been so kind, constantly offering to make her drinks and checking in. Even Marcus had sent a WhatsApp message: I hope you’re okay. Managing to get out of her bedroom felt something akin to a small win. She’d put Magda’s locket in an envelope and zipped it safely inside an old black handbag that she was using as a substitute for her broken satchel – meeting her later that evening was the last thing Jessie wanted to do, but her need for answers was overpowering her desire to run straight home. She touched her cheek lightly, conscious of the tattoo cover-up make-up she’d ordered online and layered over her face to hide the damage.
‘How are you feeling, love?’ Pamela clucked, the second she’d stepped over the threshold. ‘There’s so much of it going around at the moment; even Dr Statham was off with the lurgy yesterday as well.’
It had never occurred to Jessie before that doctors might also take sick days. Juliette held up a balled tissue.
‘I think I’m its next victim.’
She blew her nose loudly on a fresh one, as if feeling the need to provide further evidence under Pamela’s watchful eye.
‘You’re still looking a bit peaky,’ Pamela said, switching to her concerned face. ‘Are you sure you’re all right to be back in the office?’
The Wrong Move Page 15