‘Ready to go back then?’ Louise asked, her voice bringing her back from that evening and other memories.
They turned around, walking into the sunshine this time. As they ascended the last slope, Eastbourne appeared below them, spread out across the flat land at the foot of the Downs. The pier, blazing white and gold in the early-morning sunshine; Sovereign Harbour, spread along the next curve in the bay. And somewhere the other side of that, Dee’s and Katie’s homes. Dee loved her parents’ house, but the thought of going back there this morning and spending the rest of the day alone filled her with dread.
She suggested they sit for ten minutes and take in the view. To her surprise, Louise agreed without any mention of having to get back to Martin and the children.
‘I’ve been doing a bit of reading about Katie’s dad,’ Dee said. ‘The killer was a teenager called Shane Gilbert. I think he was probably Katie’s boyfriend. I’d like to speak to him, find out if he might know where she is.’
‘Maybe they’re still together,’ Louise said. ‘Is there any chance he could be Jake’s dad?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Dee said. ‘Shane was still in prison when Katie got pregnant. But she moved to Eastbourne around the same time he left prison. I think she came here to get away from him, not because she was still seeing him.’
A pair of herring gulls flew out from the cliff, shots of white against the blue sky. Dee thought she heard the whisper of their wings in the air as they passed.
‘You think she was hiding from him,’ Louise said. ‘And somehow he found her and tried to kill her.’
‘Except it wasn’t Katie,’ Dee said. ‘That poor girl died because Shane Gilbert made a mistake.’
‘You can’t know that for sure,’ Louise said.
Dee didn’t answer, because Louise was wrong. Dee knew that was what had happened. Now all she had to do was prove it.
Twenty-Two
Dee
That afternoon, Dee had another visit from Ed Mitchell.
‘You got a few minutes?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just made coffee,’ she said. ‘If you fancy a cup?’
‘Music to my ears,’ Ed said, stepping past her into the house. ‘Let’s drink it outside. It’s too sunny to sit indoors.’
‘Go right ahead,’ Dee muttered, shutting the front door and following him into the house.
While Ed settled himself on the deck, Dee prepared a tray and carried it outside.
‘No biscuits?’ Ed asked as she put the tray on the table and sat opposite him. ‘Probably just as well. Watching my weight.’ He patted his stomach and smiled. Dee bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself smiling back.
‘Louise told me you know who the victim is,’ she said.
Ed reached for the cafetière, pouring the contents into the two mugs before answering.
‘Louise is speculating,’ he said.
‘Is she right?’
‘You know better than to ask a question like that.’ He reached for his mug and slugged his coffee. In his hands, the mug looked ridiculously small, like an item from a child’s playhouse. Something about his hands triggered a memory. Ed Mitchell, body crouched low, rugby ball cradled in his arm, racing towards the try line.
She wondered if it was a real memory or something conjured up by her too vivid imagination. She didn’t think she’d ever watched a rugby match in her life.
‘I assume you didn’t drive all the way out here just for coffee?’ she said.
Ed drained what was left in his mug and held it up. ‘Any chance of more?’
‘If I say yes, will you tell me why you came out here to speak to me instead of simply picking up the phone?’
‘I might be persuaded,’ Ed said. ‘Depends how good the coffee is, of course.’
Dee knew she should probably tell him to sod off. Instead, she found herself winking and telling him he already knew how good her coffee was, so he should come right out and tell her everything he knew.
‘Coffee first,’ Ed said. When he winked right back at her, Dee grabbed his cup before either of them did anything else cheesy, and went to make a fresh pot.
‘Did Katie ever mention someone called Ella Tate?’ Ed asked when she came back outside.
Ella Tate. One of the witnesses at Shane Gilbert’s trial.
Dee took a deep breath and made sure to keep all emotion from her voice when she answered.
‘I don’t think so. Why?’
‘She was a friend of Katie’s.’
‘You think she’s the dead woman?’ Dee asked. Her mind was racing now. She couldn’t remember seeing any photos of Ella Tate in the news stories Leonard had sent her. As soon as Ed left, she’d go online and find out everything she could about the woman. Including what she looked like.
‘We’re trying to find anyone with any connection to Katie,’ Ed said. ‘Ella Tate’s a bit of a mystery to us.’
‘I don’t remember Katie ever talking about anyone called Ella,’ Dee said. ‘You sure they were friends?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘And you think she’s the victim. Is that why you’re here? Do you think I’ve been lying to you?’
‘Stop being so paranoid,’ Ed said. ‘I’m only doing my job, Dee. As for the identity of the victim, we still don’t know who she is.’
Liar, Dee thought. But she kept quiet, waiting to see what he would say next.
‘Did you ever get the sense Katie was scared, or hiding from something?’ he asked.
Goose bumps prickled across the skin on her arms and stomach.
‘I never really thought about it,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Ed said. ‘You’re a journalist. Doesn’t that make you curious about everything? I’ve always assumed a natural nosiness was a basic requirement in your line of business.’ He smiled, and in that moment Dee understood why Louise had found him so attractive. ‘Like being a detective. It was one of the things my ex hated. I need to understand people. It’s not enough knowing who committed a crime. I also want to know why. People are endlessly interesting, don’t you think?’
Dee tried to picture herself through his eyes, wondered what he made of her life. She’d like to ask him, but wasn’t sure she was brave enough to hear his answer.
‘Is that why you split up?’ she asked instead.
Ed laughed. A rich, throaty sound that sent another shiver through her body. She seriously needed to get a grip.
‘My natural curiosity wasn’t the only thing she didn’t like about me,’ he said. ‘Turned out there were a whole lot of other things as well. Particularly my inability to commit to a wedding.’
‘She wanted to get married and you didn’t.’ Dee was disappointed by this revelation, although she had no idea why she should care whether or not Ed Mitchell was the marrying kind.
‘We weren’t right together,’ he said. ‘I guess I knew that for a while, but I was too much of a coward to do anything about it. When Cath finally finished it between us, I was relieved more than anything.’
‘How long ago was that?’ Dee asked.
‘Two years. Footloose and fancy free since then. How about you?’
‘What about me?’ Dee said.
‘You were married, right?’
‘And now I’m not. Can we get back to talking about Katie? You were asking if I thought she was scared.’
‘And?’
Dee scanned the beach, as if she might find the right words amongst the sun-bleached shingle or the dried-out patches of sea kale. It was so peaceful here. Maybe that was why she’d never really considered that Katie could have been hiding. How could anyone hide in a place this wide open?
Dee had grown up on this beach, spent her entire childhood on the shingle, swimming in the sea, having picnics. Then later, as a teenager, drinking cider with her friends and smoking cigarettes and joints. She’d lost her virginity on a scrubby patch of land where the beach curved around towards Pevensey Bay.
‘She didn’t like to talk about her p
ast,’ she said. ‘Any time I asked about her life before Eastbourne, she clammed up. I never pushed it because I didn’t feel it was right to do that. I respected her privacy. She told me she was here because she loved the sea. And I believed her.’ She threw her hand out, gesturing at the grey and white shingle, the still sea and the clear blue sky. ‘I can’t think of a lovelier place to raise a child.’
‘I’ve never had kids,’ Ed said. ‘So I can’t say what I would or wouldn’t want. I’ve got two nephews, though. My sister’s kids. I know she was lonely as hell after the first one was born. Her partner was away a lot and she found it really tough trying to do everything by herself.’
‘Katie didn’t have to do everything by herself,’ Dee said. ‘She had me.’
‘And you never thought it was strange that she didn’t confide in you?’ Ed asked. ‘Didn’t you want to know why she’d moved here? Why she’d chosen to have her child in a place where she didn’t know a single person?’
‘I enjoyed being with them so much, I was afraid to push too hard. She made it clear she didn’t want to talk about certain things, and I left it at that. I thought that over time, maybe, she’d be able to tell me more about herself.’
‘But she never did.’ A statement, not a question.
Ed looked at his watch, said it was time for him to leave. As she showed him out, Dee asked him again if he thought the dead woman might be Ella Tate.
‘I thought she could have been,’ Ed said. ‘But we’ve checked Ella Tate’s dental records. It’s not her.’
‘So why ask me about her?’
‘She’s a loose end I can’t tie up,’ Ed said. ‘And I don’t like that. We’ve managed to trace a lot of people who knew Katie before she moved here. But this friend, Ella, we’ve had no luck with at all. She seems to have completely disappeared.’
‘Like Katie,’ Dee said.
Ed nodded. ‘Exactly.’
Twenty-Three
Katie
Ten years earlier
I haven’t seen either of them since that afternoon, and no one will tell me where they are or what’s happened. Ella hasn’t turned up for work. Roxanne told me she’s sick. But Roxanne’s lying, because she won’t look at me when she says it and she tries to change the subject too quickly, asking me if I know where my dad is, even though I saw them talking half an hour earlier and he told her he was going to the cash and carry.
I didn’t follow them that afternoon. I couldn’t bear to see them together. Instead, I waited. I already knew where she lived. Dad keeps a file with all the phone numbers and addresses for the staff. I’d been to Ella’s house more than once, watching her play with that stupid dog. It was clear how much she loved him, and I wanted to hurt her the way she’s hurt me. I thought it would make me feel better, but it hasn’t. It’s made everything worse. Because somehow she’s worked out what I did and she’s told Shane. That’s why he’s been avoiding me and not replying to my texts.
I imagine her sobbing into his chest, telling him what a nasty person I am. Boo hoo hoo. Instead of defending me, he holds her gently and kisses the top of her head, and says he’ll buy her another dog and he’ll make sure horrible fat Katie never does anything to hurt her ever again.
I hate them both.
I’m so sick with worry, I can’t eat. Which is good, I suppose. I’m still on the Atkins diet, and normally all I can think about is what I’m going to have for my lunch. Today, though, even the thought of food twists my stomach, and I know if I try to eat anything I’ll throw up.
I have two classes this afternoon, but I can’t face them. Sitting in a closed classroom surrounded by the smell of bodies and the heat coming off the computers and the sun burning through the big glass windows, turning the room into a furnace. And the noise of people whispering around me and about me, laughing because they know. I’m sure everyone knows by now, and I can’t stand it.
I walk across Blackheath. Hot sun, sweat running into my eyes, thighs rubbing together under my denim skirt. I imagine my skin down there, red and raw. And I think about Ella’s long, skinny legs. Pale skin that’s smooth when you touch it. I can see his hands on them, his fingers pressing into her flesh as he pulls her legs open. His pupils huge and dark, his breathing uneven. She arches up, pushes her cunt towards him, teasing him, pulling back, making him beg the way he never begs me for anything.
They’re inside my head, doing all the things we’ve done together, only it’s better and hotter and faster and different because it’s her, not me. His hands on her and in her and she’s face down now and he’s pushing and grunting and I want him to stop but he doesn’t and it hurts but it’s okay because it’s what he wants and oh God now he’s moving so fast and digging deeper, his hand on my head shoving my face into the ground. Dirt in my mouth and I’m suffocating. But then, suddenly, it’s over and he’s rolling off, but when I turn my head to look at him, it’s not my face he sees.
‘Ella.’ He whispers her name and she stretches out one long, perfect arm and smiles as she points at the fat girl who’s standing in the corner, watching them.
I’m in Greenwich Park, walking faster but not fast enough, because I can’t get away from them. Their laughter chases after me, following me down the hill all the way to the river, wrapping itself around my throat, choking me.
Across the water, the city spreads away from me as far as I can see. I’ll go down into the foot tunnel that runs under the river, come out the other side and walk through that mass of concrete and people and glass and churches and traffic and noise. I’ll walk through it all, not stopping even when I reach the far edges of the city where it slows down, fades until there’s no city any more and all around are fields and trees and sheep.
But it won’t help. Even if I made it that far, it wouldn’t change this thing that’s building up inside me, bursting through my head and heart and body until it’s all I am, and the person I used to be is lost in it, consumed by it.
I can’t breathe. My throat and mouth and lungs are so clogged up with the desperate desire to see him and feel him and know he’s not with her and he never will be. I lean over the railings. Bits of my face reflected in the water. An eye and a chin. The curve of a cheek. I half close my eyes and imagine it’s Ella’s face I’m looking at. Our two faces merging into one.
Water swirls past, dark and deep and fast. I lean over further, imagining what it would feel like to drop down, to let go. My feet tipping up and over, the hit of cold water against the top of my head as my body shoots down, disappears. Falling deeper and deeper until I don’t know which way is up any more. Carried on the current through the south London suburbs and Essex, all the way out to the North Sea.
The river was one of the places they searched for my mum. Dredging, they called it. I remember trying to picture it. A boat with a big net dragging through water and mud and sand. The tug as it found her body and lifted her up, out of the water.
But it didn’t happen like that because they never found her. Which doesn’t mean she’s not down there. Waiting, maybe. I close my eyes, remember what it felt like when she wrapped her arms around me, telling me I was beautiful. Her voice soft and warm, and there’s no way you could believe she didn’t love you when she spoke to you like that.
‘Don’t jump.’
For a split second, I’m angry. I don’t want to hear his voice right now, even though he’s all I’ve thought about for the last four days. I want my mum’s voice to stay, but she’s already gone and he’s ruined it for me. But then he puts his hand on my shoulder and electricity shoots through me and I’m alive again. I swing around from the railings to make sure it’s really him.
A hand-rolled cigarette hangs from the side of his mouth and he’s carrying a bottle of vodka that he waves in the air.
‘I’m going back to mine to get pissed,’ he says. ‘My parents are at some event at my dad’s work. They won’t be back till late. You coming?’
I want to tell him I saw him. And I know. I know how he f
eels about Ella Tate and I know he’s been following her and I know too that she’s the only reason he’s ever bothered with me.
But he smiles and moves closer, making my body melt to nothing. I grab the railing, because if I don’t hold onto something, there’ll be nothing left. And inside my head, his hands between her legs and the smell of her all around us, her voice and his and my head so dizzy the whole world is spinning.
‘Come on.’
He tilts his head and starts walking. He doesn’t look back to check if I’m coming too, because he knows he doesn’t have to. He knows I’ll always do what he asks me to.
Twenty-Four
Dee
Dee dreamed about the dead girl. In the dream, the girl spoke to her. Told her who she was and asked her to help the police find her killer. When Dee woke up, the details of the dream were already slipping from her consciousness. The only thing that remained was the dead girl’s name. Or rather, the name she’d given herself in Dee’s dream. Ella Tate. Except according to Ed, the dead girl wasn’t Ella Tate.
During the night, Dee had managed to convince herself there was some mistake. The dead girl had to be Ella Tate, because nothing else made any sense. This morning, as the dream drifted away and fingers of light trickled through the cracks in the blinds, she knew that if something wasn’t making any sense, it was because she was asking the wrong questions.
After showering and getting dressed, she selected Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison album from her Spotify playlist and turned the volume up loud. Johnny had got her through some of the best and worst times of her life, and he was exactly what she needed right now.
She made coffee and sat on the deck, keeping the doors open so she could hear the music. Every so often, the gravelly voice and guitar chords were interspersed with whoops and cheers from the prison inmates. Dee flicked through the news sites on her phone while she drank her coffee. Nothing had changed since yesterday. Jake and Katie were still missing, and there was no update on the identity of the missing girl.
I Could Be You Page 13