‘Someone killed her,’ said Cat bluntly. ‘She was murdered, probably by someone she had let in. No question. Her mother said – I don’t think she could even think about what she was saying. I don’t know when Holly last saw her, but I’d say they hadn’t been close. She—’ She stopped.
‘What did she say?’ Georgie almost whispered.
‘Her mother said she was raped and strangled.’ Cat’s voice shook.
‘What?’ said Georgie, stupidly, her head turning automatically, in terror, to Tabs in the back garden, perched on the old climbing frame, then back to Cat’s face. Thinking of Holly’s sharp ankles, her long legs, her face rough in early morning light. Thinking of Holly having a mother. ‘What? No. No.’
‘I know,’ said Cat, and Georgie saw a shiver pass through her, from her shoulders to her hand around the mug, unsteady with the horror. ‘I know. She didn’t actually have a home, it turns out. The last boyfriend kicked her out – they’re talking to him, but he isn’t even in the country, so it wasn’t him.’
‘She was supposed to be meeting me yesterday,’ said Georgie, numbly. ‘And she didn’t turn up.’ Cat’s mouth opened, then closed again. Holly had a mum. Holly had been living out of an Airbnb and no bloke looking after her, after all. Rather the opposite. Holly and her wheelie suitcase.
She remembered the last thing Holly said, or tried to say. Just be— and then nothing. Just be careful.
There was a silence. ‘They can’t find her phone,’ said Cat, and she was mumbling, in an odd voice. Perhaps it was shock. ‘I left my number with the police.’ She hesitated. ‘In case they want to ask, about, you know. About Friday night.’
Dazed with the horror of it, Georgie felt that thud into her, remotely. ‘Friday night,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, of course. Of course.’
‘I’m going to call again later. Shall I—’ her gaze, on Georgie, flickered. ‘Shall I give them yours?’
‘Yes,’ said Georgie, immediately ‘Of course I should talk to them too.’ Cat nodded, still looking down.
Because it was all in her head, because nothing had happened. She’d done nothing wrong. Why wouldn’t she talk to the police? Tim would be all right with it, he would probably even encourage it. Probably.
‘And shouldn’t you be—’ Georgie changed tack because if there was anything Cat hated, it was being told what she should or shouldn’t do. ‘Isn’t your treatment—’
Cat looked up then from the coffee mug but her face, her bright tough face that was always so alive, set and blank. ‘My first appointment’s tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Georgie, the word escaping her. ‘Oh, it’s such shit, Cat.’ Then, ‘This must be the worst bit. Waiting for it to start. Is there anything—’
Cat just shook her head. ‘Harry’s taken a month off,’ she said. ‘The company say it’s OK.’ She shrugged. ‘If it goes on – well—’ and Georgie’s hand shot out despite her knowing Cat hated this pity crap, and Cat’s came out to meet it.
Chipped nails, her knuckles dry from washing up but always elegant, that was Cat, in her careless way. Georgie took it, squeezing, tight and tighter.
‘I’m glad you came, George,’ said Cat. ‘I’m scared, you know? It’s scary. All of it. Cancer, Holly, all of it.’ Looking into Georgie’s face. ‘Where did it come from?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’
Then into the silence there was a commotion at the front door and the tiny house was full, crammed with boys kicking off their shoes and shoving. And Harry was in the kitchen door, his face anxious at the sight of Cat’s face – both their faces. And it was time to go.
In the back on the way home Tabs kept up her babble, she was hungry and what was for lunch and this was what she wanted and Georgie delivered answers randomly, trying to get them home in one piece. Trying to find a way out, of all this.
Where had it come from?
She had heard it. Seen it. That small hesitation of Cat’s.
Cat had thought she’d be reluctant to go to the police. Cat was skirting round something, even Cat with so much on her plate, had seen something, remembered something, detected something.
There could be any number of reasons for it. Who wanted the police round? Cat knew Tim well enough: she might never have been to their house, with its hedges and security systems, in its exclusive close, but she knew he wouldn’t want a police car outside it. And she’d been puzzled, at Georgie’s trip back to London, more puzzled now at the thought she and Holly had arranged to meet.
Cat wasn’t stupid.
Georgie had sat on the bus in traffic, Tabs asleep against her and the mobile in her hands. Her heart in her mouth, her fingers trembling so much she had to type and retype the few words. I’m in London.
He hadn’t answered.
She’d deleted it straight away. He didn’t see it. Perhaps that was it. She told herself that. Her heart thumping so fast she thought Tabs would feel it, she thought she might have a stroke, there on the top deck of a bus in London.
He didn’t even see it. It was a good thing. A good thing. The only good thing. Thank God: a small rush of relief.
They got home, in one piece, in the sunshine, back inside the house, the cool empty clean house. Tabs opened the fridge straight away, something she wasn’t allowed to do when Tim was there. Tim would have taken her hand off the door and held it up, high in his own hand while he closed the door, keeping Tabs there, half dangling, while he explained. No eating between meals.
She took out a yoghurt and Georgie got a spoon for her and she ran outside with it, a splash already on her skirt. Georgie turned on the tap, reached for a cloth, intending – but she lost track of what she had been intending.
How could she have even thought of messaging him? How could she have let him have her number? Not objected, to the text, to the flowers. Georgie held the phone tight between her hands now, in the kitchen, in the sunshine. She would like to throw it into the garden, into the trees, flush it down the toilet. She could tell Tim she’d lost it. She knew she wouldn’t do it. She was already talking herself down.
If she’d seen him.
And she trembled. There had been a moment, on the threshold of the café, when she’d imagined – but it hadn’t been him. When she’d looked up there’d been no one there. If she had even bumped into him in the street, if she’d allowed him to talk to her, smiling down at her. So dangerous. So dangerous. She’d be – like Holly. If Tim, if Tim—
In a dangerous place, cut loose, living hand to mouth. What had she been thinking? Just because he’d kissed her. And anyone could say, I can’t stop thinking about you, couldn’t they? Just words. And then it stirred, again: the unease. We’ll do it again, soon. He’d kissed her, and then he wasn’t there any more and she had woken up in a strange bed, and only Holly had known what happened in between.
And now Holly was dead. Under her hand the water was running cold and Georgie stared down at it without understanding for a second, before hastily turning it off.
Tabs would need a clean skirt. She walked upstairs, standing on the landing. One way, Tabs’ bedroom, the other way theirs. Hers and Tim’s.
I hardly knew her. But. Her sharp knees, on that other bathroom floor with Georgie the morning after. Whispering. Cat asleep on the bed, snoring. The only person who could tell her what happened that night, who could make sense of it, because Georgie couldn’t remember. Just couldn’t remember.
And she was dead.
In the bedroom Georgie’s clothes were everywhere. If Tim had been here he’d have had a go. Her keys on the floor.
She went into their room, bending to pick things up, keys in her handbag, knickers in the linen basket. Setting things back to rights. Bending, she felt her belly, smaller and found herself thinking of Tim, suggesting she should get away, go to a spa. He’d be pleased, when he got home. She could get back on track, she could love her house, her work. She shouldn’t have upset the apple cart by going off on a night out, she’d just wanted to see Cat,
that was all.
Not Holly: she’d hardly remembered who Holly was, to begin with, had she. But Holly had been – vital, in her way. What would they have done if Holly hadn’t come, if it had been just the two of them? They’d have stuck together. No man would have got between them. Got pissed, danced, taxi home holding each other’s hand tight.
Holly had been a kind of conduit, hadn’t she, opened the evening up, with her little suitcase and her carelessness, her languid, intimate way with the barman. With the hat-check girl.
Opening up another world of secret communications with men you hardly knew. Because deep underground, Georgie still felt the reverberations of shame, the misery, of him not replying to her message. The message she didn’t even know if she’d sent. What had she thought would happen? They would have a drink together? How would she have explained him to Tabs? Reckless. Stupid.
Holly had been reckless. She gave it off: she’d open the door to a stranger, she’d have a one-night stand. But she shouldn’t be dead. She should be sleeping it off, she should be picking herself up and starting again. She’d opened the door to a stranger, and he’d raped and strangled her.
Blindly she went on, tidying, tidying, till the room was clean and neat, the bed smoothed, all drawers closed, the suits neat in the wardrobe. She was shutting the doors on them, trying to still the voices in her head, when the phone blipped. She didn’t go to it straight away. She made herself wait. It was from Tim.
Home by five, six at the latest. Met some good people. Can’t wait to see you, what’s for dinner? Of course, he had no idea, it wasn’t his fault. Had he even remembered Holly? Had Georgie even mentioned her? Holly the loose cannon, Tim’s idea of hell.
Downstairs the flowers were there in their big glass bowl, the water stained dark.
It’s all right, Georgie told herself, over and over, it’s all right. You’ve done nothing. It’s not too late.
Too late for Holly, though.
Sunday morning and Frank was running. Up through cluttered Soho, rubbish on the pavements, empties, grey stone, sparkling sky. Winding through Mayfair, Harley Street, clean red and white façades, all those doctors and private hospitals, up to the roar of the big road, beyond it the park.
Passing the private hospitals he thought of Holly, taken down some narrow stairs and out in a body bag.
Matteo had told him. Holly.
Two in the morning and the Soho night still young but Frank had stepped out through the curtain, hands stuck down in his pocket, wishing he hadn’t given up smoking. Two minutes, he’d said to Dom, because he’d had a sudden feeling of suffocation, or panic, or something, like a premonition, and there’d been a lull. The door quiet: he’d brushed Matteo’s shoulder as he emerged and Matteo had turned, cleared his throat.
Frank had seen straight away how pale he was. He looked – Frank couldn’t quite make sense of it because he’d never seen Matteo anything but stolid, calm – he looked frightened. ‘Holly,’ he said. ‘That girl—’ he pronounced it gew, like a real cockney, ‘the one they find dead? Is Holly.’ Then Frank saw the police car parked up the street, saw its light come on as it pulled away.
‘But she—’
‘Is none of our business, Frank,’ Matteo said, stopping him, looking both ways, but Frank persisted.
‘She wasn’t a hooker, though,’ he said, bewildered, stunned. A woman he’d seen, whose perfume he’d smelled. Matteo’s hands on his shoulders, stubborn, ‘They said the girl was—’
‘I don’ know what she was,’ said Matteo, with as much urgency as Frank had ever heard in his voice. Jerking his head to send Frank back inside. ‘Is not our business.’
He’d just been shocked. So shocked – although he had opened his mouth it didn’t make sense so he didn’t say it. He didn’t say, But her friend Georgie was on her way to meet her, yesterday afternoon. She never turned up: the random guy had been waiting there instead. Not so random after all.
Inside Dom had been bouncing from foot to foot behind the bar, pointing into the air, punters waiting. Lucy’s pale oval of a face framed by her velvet curtain, watchful.
Frank was too heavy to run, really. Hard on the knees. Once through the iron railings he set out across a diagonal path, watching the other figures doing the same as him on other paths, all of them moving like some board game, like air traffic control. He passed one, a whippet but grim-faced. It was a pretty morning but that just made him think of her dead, too.
Holly with her big smile and her wheelie suitcase. Holly with her eyes on the prize, but what prize? Dead in a body bag. He thought she wanted a man, but what did he know? Standing on the pavement under his window and gazing up at some guy like he was Marlon Brando.
That guy. Jogging, Frank squeezed his eyes shut a moment, trying to remember him. Anything about him. Dark blue suited shoulder, her fingernails scarlet against the fabric, curled round his upper arm.
Matteo talking to her on the doorstep of the Capri about her mystery man, her prince bloody charming. And now what? Is none of our business.
The park looked beautiful. The sky bright blue. Frank had been coming here since he was a kid, the little boats on the lake, the playground where he broke his wrist on the roundabout and Mum coming in her overalls, furious, to haul him off to the hospital. He remembered the little toilets just for kids, tiny porcelain behind the doors and a ferocious Jamaican auntie in charge. Railings and autumn colour just beginning and a freshness to the air. The roar of the big road was steady and comforting to Frank’s ears, Ally Pally a distant spire in the misted sky.
He had looked scared, though. Matteo.
Maybe he knew more about Holly than Frank did: certainly he did. But he wasn’t going to talk about it.
He bumped into Lucy in the corridor, getting her coat on, at two: the car came for her at two, Eddie’s car. She looked like she wanted to run, her pale pointed face, she began to push past him and without really thinking, he stopped her. Took hold of her by the arms like Matteo had him. A sacking offence, if Eddie knew. Touching the boss’s wife – but there was no one to see.
‘What were you and Eddie talking about, earlier?’ he said. ‘You knew her, didn’t you? Holly. Who was killed. I saw you talking to her, that night. Friday before last.’
She pulled away. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. She was a punter, is all.’ She tried to push past him but he blocked her and for a second he saw a flash of something, fear. Panic. ‘Look, Frank, I don’t know what you think you’re—’ Blustering.
‘It’s not one of Eddie’s buildings, is it? Where she was found?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she was holding her ground, haughty, coming the boss’s wife over him.
He was patient. ‘They’re saying she was a prostitute,’ he said. ‘Did you know that?’
She made an impatient sound, pushed his arm off her. Frank stepped back. ‘I don’t know the woman,’ she said. ‘But Eddie’s not a pimp.’ Something in her voice, a wobble, and then she cleared her throat. Was Eddie a pimp? The thought hadn’t occurred to Frank. But Lucy’s voice was firmer now, defiant.
‘From what I heard the coppers saw thousands of pounds of fancy underwear and her camping out in an Airbnb in Soho and drew their own conclusions.’ Pulled her coat shut, triumphant. ‘Now if you don’t mind. Eddie doesn’t like me being late.’ A threat in the words.
Would she tell? Tell what? Frank’s asking bloody questions again.
Frank was coming past the children’s playground now. The playground was empty, new slide, roundabout gone – he remembered throwing up on that roundabout when he was a kid – but the little toilet block was still there, white-painted brick.
He wondered how she knew, about the underwear. The cleaner? Some dodgy copper? It would be Eddie: Eddie knew everyone. Including policemen.
Frank tried to think of the last time he’d talked to the police, and it was a while. They parked up for their coffee early mornings and knew who he was all right, the
y exchanged nods, but Frank kept his distance. It seemed only wise. He didn’t know how their minds worked.
Frank thought he might make a loop round the northern canal and seeing another runner in the corner of his eye found himself wondering about that guy. The one he’d seen watching Fanelli’s yesterday afternoon: wondered if he’d see him again. Get a chance to work out where he knew him from. For no reason except he was the same build, roughly, tall and skinny.
Had it been him, on Holly’s arm? Then Frank saw some tattooed guys swinging their legs above the water and knew he was too near Camden and he turned back, wondering if he could ever live anywhere but London.
Turning for home, the last stretch, straight down between the wide avenue of mature trees that bisected the park, Frank was tiring now. He narrowed his vision not to include the morning dogwalkers, the old blokes on benches, the other runners, but focused on his stride, lengthening it. Trying to imagine himself one of those animals that was solid but still graceful as he headed for the big road, roaring already with the morning’s load of commuter traffic. He wasn’t graceful, he was heavy, but he slogged on.
He wondered about those boxes, the ones Eddie had him stash in the club.
He wondered about Lucy putting her hand on him in the kitchen, calculated, and Lucy and Eddie in the cloakroom, murmuring. Taking him for a mug.
He didn’t like it. The loneliness had receded but Frank felt lost in all this. At sea: him and Georgie, too. Frank had Georgie’s number now: he could give her a call, ask her if she was all right, but he knew he wouldn’t. In another world, she’d have his number and would phone him. Ask for his help. In another world they’d have circled each other in the school playground until he’d plucked up courage to ask her out. But they hadn’t and he hadn’t and Georgie was a married lady, home with her little girl and her husband, safe. He hoped so, anyway.
Reaching the gate in the long railing fence he stopped, gasping, and feeling every year of his age, every pound on his gut, Frank bent over. He gave in.
Chapter Eighteen
A Secret Life Page 17