by M. T Hill
Shep plays it cool, nodding along. He focuses on the wall behind the librarian. The last dregs of sun give it a coppery burnish.
‘Can I see your card?’ the librarian asks.
Shep shakes his head. ‘I forgot it.’
‘Then what’s your surname? I can find you on the system.’
‘I’ll just pay,’ Shep says. He flashes his debit fob before she can protest. ‘Did you see her at all?’
The librarian nods hastily, in case anyone should see. ‘Mauve section. The disconnected machines. She really shouldn’t be using her phone in there.’ She taps the top. ‘Pop your fob on here, please.’
Shep realises what’s happened, and grins. Freya’s forgotten to mask herself.
‘Sir?’ The librarian motions to the reader.
Shep holds down his fob. The reader turns green.
‘And just so I’ve told you,’ the librarian adds, ‘tablet rental’s cheaper if you take an analogue book home with you. Know where you’re going?’ The librarian angles her head. ‘Up there and round.’
Shep gives her the thumbs and slopes off.
* * *
The library’s interior has a tactile finish, brassy details and squashy carpet. The books in the tapering walls are kept with a standard of care approaching obsessive. In one section, Shep pauses to admire a machine tidying several shelves at once, its stacking arms taking misplaced volumes, shuffling them like cards, and reseating them at uniform depths. In the central study area, readers sit at every table. He clocks an oceanic bank of manuscripts wound tightly over spools, like carpets in a wholesaler’s warehouse. It’s dizzying to think of all those words.
Shep finds the dead zone corridor, moving away from the central domed room into the library’s outer ring. Silent over the corridor’s thick carpet, between the hardbacks waiting in trolleys to be re-shelved. The walls engineered to deaden sound.
When the walls turn mauve, Shep slows. There are five rooms to his right. He approaches the window of the first room and swallows, surprised by his nerves. He peers in. Beige and vacant like a museum exhibit. He half expects to see labels on mundane objects, a waxwork overachiever in the corner. The next room contains three students crawling across a spread of yellowed newspapers, faces rumpled with concentration. The third room is empty, the fourth closed, lights off. Freya’s in the fifth, then. Christ, his heart. Maybe he should knock? Pretend not to realise it’s occupied and make a fuss of the door? He hangs there, then changes his mind.
Shep slips back into the third room and locks the door. Freya is two rooms over. He empties his pockets and rolls up the hems of his jeans, the sleeves of his top. He goes to the window and looks down on an alley. A few people walking by. Blank windows opposite, streaks of rainbow in the bomb-blast film that coats them.
Shep opens the window, pulls up his hood and climbs onto the ledge. From there, he lowers himself into the gaps of the brickwork, every finger but his damaged one stuffed into the mortar. He traverses beneath the fourth room’s window, toes tight on slender edges until a good stretch brings his leading hand up to the fifth room’s window ledge. Stone powder grinds under the callused pads of his fingers. His other hand follows gracefully. He controls his body’s natural heft, swings from the core and heaves himself up. The blinds open and the room is revealed to him. Freya Medlock sits at a desk, side-on but face mostly visible, her neck extended. There’s a picture of Ste Parsons’ ex-girlfriend enlarged on her screen.
Maybe it’s a kind of validation that makes Shep lose his grip. Maybe it’s his weak finger. The hand comes off the ledge and he barely compensates for the swing, then his feet lose their hold. His body locks up. His stomach leaps into his throat. In one instant he notices a few people beneath him, a shower of dust dispersing. Time decelerating. Somehow, he doesn’t fall. His other hand stays solid, arm fully locked out, and with a grunt, he puts the weaker hand back in place. ‘Fucking hell,’ he rasps, trying in vain to get his toes back in. He can’t see, and it’s no good. Someone below shouts to him. He needs a different perch. Down is too far, traversing impossible without footholds. The only option is the downspout over to his left, so in desperation he swings his legs and jumps for it. His knees connect first, wrap the pipe monkey-like. His hands and forearms follow. Momentum carries him out to full extension beyond the pipe, which shivers mortar dust, and somehow doesn’t break. He brings himself back into the stonework. Someone on the ground claps. He waits, expecting Freya to appear at the window having heard it all. No angle here except on a plane of the inner wall. He wipes his face on his shoulder. He waits there, panting. But the wall remains as it was. No change in the shadows of the room. How? Is it that she isn’t coming, or that she won’t come? How has she not heard him?
Shep takes his chance. A small crowd is starting to form now. Phone camera shutters sounding out. He checks his hood is covering his face, unpockets his mobile and holds it up to the window until it locates Freya’s handset. When a little vibration confirms it’s lifted her number, he descends the pipe, her expression an afterimage. That was her natural state, sitting there in front of the terminal. She was leaning in, lost in it, totally oblivious. And she’d looked so upset.
Sirens bear down. By the time Shep reaches the ground, jostles through the bystanders and sprints across St Peter’s Square, his jaw aches from laughing. He vaults the tram platform, heads behind an office block, and stuffs the hoody in his bag, double-checking that nobody near the library can see. Then he darts back towards the square. He knows now what Freya must want. He knows because it’s what he wants. The pull for both of them is too great.
He sits on a bench and preps an airhack.
The Journalist
Freya wakes from dreams of ice-climbing, ropeless and frightened. She dresses and eats breakfast like an automaton, phone in one hand, rereading her exchange with Shep in partial disbelief. His sender details now display a ghost emoji, signalling he’s used a throwaway account, a burner phone, or simply blocked her. It comes across as paranoid, if not plain childish. She’d write off the whole thing if the idea of going on a mission wasn’t so powerfully linked to Stephen, and her investigation. If finding out Stephen had fathered a son with Alba didn’t feel so significant.
As Freya is about to leave, her mother shouts from the computer room. Freya pauses by the door as her mother storms to the kitchen sink with three mugs. ‘You need to sleep,’ her mother says. ‘Working late and drinking this crap’ll do for your heart.’
Freya placates her with a wave and fastens her blazer.
‘And you need to stop obsessing like you do!’ her mother calls after her.
Freya unlocks the door. The sharp air stings her nostrils. She has her car drive her to work while she listens to Stephen’s eulogy again. Turned up loud, there are new details: a woman’s huffing sobs, rhythmic like a click-track, a baby mewling, a piercing tenor during the first hymn. ‘My brother,’ that broken voice begins.
She cuts it there and enters the office. The speech is almost taunting, now there’s a concrete lead to follow.
When she gets to her section, her colleagues break into quiet applause.
‘Here she comes,’ one says.
Freya frowns at them, confused. She hurries past, into her bank. And stops. Her workstation is covered with cuttings from various papers, some of them national. She unsticks a Post-it note from the top of the run-outs. A smiley face, a thick tick, the editor’s initials. She sits down to poke through the pages, slightly woozy. Every article is derived from her piece about Stephen’s funeral, now-irrelevant arrests and all. The recognition alone should feel better than it does, but after what happened with the man at the garden centre, Freya feels even more exposed by it. Never mind that Alba will already know that Freya plundered her stream.
‘It’s done quite well,’ the editor says behind her. ‘Monthly targets smashed in a day. Online impressions way up. And that’s not even counting the fact that the Mail’s subs forgot to update the photo lin
ks, so all their traffic came to us for a few hours.’
Freya swivels, closes her eyes. Stephen’s family will now be fending off requests from countless British journalists, not to mention Americans, Australians, or reporters from expat communities in any number of places. It’s the nature of a story snowballing, but it makes her feel strangely protective. Worried, in fact. Expat journos in particular are vicious about things back home – a fixation that keeps them rooted, or reassured.
‘Maybe you should consider features after all,’ the editor says, arms folded. ‘If you think anything’s got legs.’
Freya sees the value, now, of writing under a pseudonym. What would hers be? Sneaky bitch, she thinks. I’m a sneaky bitch. ‘I’ve had a few more ideas,’ she tells the editor.
Stephen never drank. Stephen had an estranged partner. Stephen had a son. And someone doesn’t want her to dig.
‘Tell me,’ the editor says.
* * *
Freya has a planner in her desk with useful numbers for helpline operators, outreach centres and service-sector businesses, salons and massage parlours included. After pitching to the editor, she takes the planner into a meeting room and calls the local children’s services branch.
‘Hello, GMCS?’
The desk phone shows a smartly dressed woman in her early twenties.
‘Hi there,’ Freya starts. ‘Hoping you can help. My name’s Esther, and I’m a relative of a man who passed away recently.’
‘Oh,’ the woman says, friendly enough. ‘So sorry to hear that. How can I help you today?’
‘Actually,’ Freya says, ‘I’m trying to amend the child maintenance arrangements he had in place for his son.’
The woman’s expression is unreadable. Freya clears her throat. It’d crossed her mind to message Alba directly, try to set up an interview. But they lack mutual connections, so the message wouldn’t hit Alba’s main inbox. Even if Alba did see it, she’d likely delete or ignore it. Or, if Alba received the notifications about Freya accessing her stream, she’d have grounds to cry harassment. It wouldn’t take much to search Freya’s name and see her duplicity in full – to realise that Freya wants info on Stephen. And that’s assuming Alba hasn’t already spotted Freya’s piece on Stephen’s funeral.
All of which means Freya has to play this differently.
‘Amend them how?’ the woman asks.
‘So, the problem is that only his ex-partner has access to the account, and we don’t know any of the security details. We think she’s moved abroad, possibly to Iceland.’
‘I see, okay. And you don’t have a case number?’
‘Nothing,’ Freya says, cringing to herself. ‘Not right now.’
‘Could you tell me your full name, then? For data protection…’
‘Parsons,’ Freya says. ‘It’s Esther Parsons.’
‘Thank you, Esther. And the child’s name?’
‘Oriol…’ Freya hesitates. ‘Parsons.’
‘Hello? Ms Parsons? Did you say Orion Parsons?’
Freya freezes.
‘Ms Parsons? We’d need Orion’s date of birth, too.’
‘Maybe we could resolve this without having to pay fees,’ Freya tells the woman. ‘If you could confirm the address you have on file.’
‘I’m very sorry, but we can’t share information like that.’
Freya’s blown it. Of course she has. She mutes the phone. ‘Shit,’ she says quietly. ‘Shit.’
‘Hello, Esther?’
Freya hangs up. Now she’ll have to go the other way.
* * *
Freya arrives outside Stephen’s parents’ cottage with a bunch of garage forecourt flowers on the passenger seat. The village is wealthy. Verdant and orderly. While she’s still in the car she applies heavier make-up and takes her hair out of the same high bun she’d worn for the funeral. She pulls her layers around her chin to try and soften her face. She gets out, smooths her blazer. Unlatches the front gate and skulks up the path. After ringing the doorbell, she admires the front lawns and bedding, which are bursting with coordinated neon flowers. Her bouquet seems bleak in comparison.
‘Come on,’ she says under her breath. There’s a sign pinned to the front door that reads NO PRESS, NO PHOTOGRAPHY, because the cottage has been fenced off by judge decree.
The door latch clanks, and a man peers out. His father.
‘Hey,’ Freya says. She holds up the bouquet.
‘Afternoon!’ he says cheerfully. She was ready for frost, abruptness, and his response throws her. Not that she knew what to expect. A harried-looking couple? Vacant stares, Freya blinking expectantly at them, being spat at, the door slammed in her face? She’d deserve as much. She’s had as much before. Sneaky bitch. In her mind it was all that or nothing at all – a doorbell ringing, curtains drawn, a sad stillness.
‘You look familiar,’ Stephen’s father says. ‘Were you at his funeral?’
There’s no shakiness in his voice, no discernible sorrow. He looks bright – he looks energetic. On the surface, at least, he’s bearing up well.
‘No,’ Freya says. ‘I…’
The man smiles. ‘It’s fine duck, but Helen’s out today. I can still put the kettle on if you like.’ He nods at the flowers. ‘She’ll love them.’
Freya tilts the bouquet fractionally. ‘I wanted to…’ she says. ‘A cup of tea would be nice.’
She steps into the house expecting a faint mildew smell, but it’s warm. Cream walls, pristine white furniture, slender technology. Functional items hidden in the walls. Very few chairs, books, collections of anything. The shelves are empty save from a stack of newspapers. No visible wires, either – though she does spot red error blips firing on an old wireless hub and wonders if Stephen used to deal with such hiccups, if he served, like most of their generation, as his parents’ IT consultant. Maybe the hub has been in spasm since he died. Maybe he’d popped out with the promise to fix it later. His lingering presence bears this out. A technical-looking jacket hangs in the hall. A filthy roll of climbing tape and a set of chalk marks at one end of the shoe rack. A solitary picture of his – she knows it by the colours alone – on the mantelpiece.
‘He did take such bizarre pictures,’ Stephen’s father says, following her gaze. He’s standing in the kitchen doorway.
Freya edges closer. The picture describes a dusty, abandoned warehouse. A rhombus of light falling through the roof.
‘Please make yourself cosy,’ Stephen’s father says.
Freya breaks away from the picture. ‘I’m Claire, by the way,’ she tells him. And she sits down like she’s forgotten why she’s here. Like she’s as entitled to grief as any of them. Like she really knew Stephen.
Stephen’s father slides out a tray from some unseen alcove. He stops, fleetingly, by the stack of newspapers on the shelves. Suddenly she knows why they’re keeping them.
‘Milk and sugar?’ Stephen’s father asks.
‘Just milk,’ she says, then listens as he fills the kettle. The sound of it, so ordinary, makes her wonder if Stephen’s death will ultimately separate his parents. Her own parents always said they’d turn into husks if anything happened to her. Is it possible to still love the person with whom you created a life you then lost?
Stephen’s father returns, cups rattling on the tray.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s the tiny things that keep eluding me. Where’s the sugar? What did I open that cupboard for? Here you are.’
Freya takes her tea. A lipstick mark on one side of the cup. She carefully rotates it, blows and takes a sip. ‘Lovely,’ she says, though it tastes sour. ‘Ta.’
‘So, how did you know him?’ Stephen’s father is pacing the lounge, eyes to the carpet. ‘Was it climbing?’
Freya looks into her tea. A curd of milk pushes against the surface tension. She swallows thickly. ‘Sort of,’ she says.
‘Oh, the exploring,’ he says.
This surprises Freya, and she can’t hide it.
‘We hardly
approved,’ Stephen’s father says. ‘Constant cuts and bruises, pulled muscles, sprains. Came home panting most nights, in the wars. I waited in that bloody A&E department more times than I care to remember. I suppose in the end we needn’t have fretted. It’s the stuff you don’t worry about that gets you, isn’t it? That boy climbed like we pick our noses. He wasn’t made to fall.’
Freya nods, but his ruse is thin. He’s desperately trying to keep it together. ‘I don’t think exploring ever harmed anyone.’
‘No. And that’s what I’m saying. Laws are laws and all, and he was extremely lucky to get away with some of the things he did, but… we know it did him good. One of his pals got five years, if I recall. That’s a madness. But all this? This wasn’t him.’
Freya nods.
‘And we keep wishing we could say he died doing what he loved,’ Stephen’s father says. ‘Because he didn’t, did he? He didn’t. Now we’re… I’m sorry.’
Freya gives him a sympathetic smile. ‘I can’t imagine how hard it’s been.’
‘It’s these questions. You just keep asking yourself, over and over. And Helen hasn’t slept since they released those men. She’s convinced the coroner missed something. Were you close to him?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Not massively.’
‘Oh.’
‘I mean we used to be,’ she says. ‘Once.’
‘And you’re certain we’ve never met?’
‘Yes.’
Stephen’s father sips his coffee. He doesn’t seem to notice the spoiled milk, and Freya wonders how many cups he’s gone through in this state. ‘What was your name again? Claire?’
‘Claire, yes.’
Freya needs to break the thread. This can’t be about her.
‘Have you heard from Alba?’ she asks him. She does it casually enough: concerned but deliberate.
Stephen’s father stops pacing. ‘Alba,’ he says, then hesitates, as if he’s weighing whether to go there. ‘And you said you weren’t close to Stephen?’
There it is. She pushes. ‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘She has nothing to say to us. She ran off before he… Before.’