The Downstairs Neighbor

by Helen Cooper

  He watched her now, chicken grease glistening on her lips, and felt a pang of affection. Maybe she sensed it because she actually smiled at him, then wiped her mouth with a napkin and laughed at her own table manners.

  The moment was broken when Jane said, “So what’s she like, Chris?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl! Freya. You must’ve got to know her a bit, teaching her to drive?”

  He trailed a finger in his cold gravy. “Not really. There isn’t much chitchat during a lesson. I’m generally just trying to keep us both . . .” He caught himself before he said alive, and an uneasy silence fell.

  “Her parents must be worried sick,” Jane said.

  “Well, maybe they should’ve taken better care of her.” This was Di, suddenly indignant, aggravating Chris again, even though part of him wanted to agree.

  “That’s harsh, Di,” Vicky said. “Horrible things can happen to anyone.”

  There was another silence, a twang of tension, and Chris sensed their history swirling between them, sensed that they were half talking about their own parents now, and their different levels of forgiveness.

  It was Di’s husband, Gav, who defused things, scooping up plates and blathering about pudding. The man couldn’t cope with serious conversation for longer than a few seconds. Chris was grateful to him tonight, though. The atmosphere adjusted with the clatter of crockery and a discussion about treacle sponge cake. He felt Vicky’s eyes on him, but when he glanced up she wasn’t looking at him at all: She was twisted away, talking to Jane.

  * * *

  —

  Di never let anyone help her clear up after lunch. Chris hated the martyred air with which she retreated into the kitchen, washing every dish and putting them all away, loudly urging her guests to relax. The other sisters thought nothing of it: This had always been Di’s role, Chief Grown-Up, and now that she had the biggest house it seemed even more entrenched.

  On his way back from the bathroom, Chris poked his head into the kitchen. He normally avoided asking Di if she needed any help, reluctant to offer her an extra chance to decline heroically, but tonight he had to talk to her.

  “Want a coffee, Chris?” She began filling the kettle with her left hand, scouring a baking tray with her right.

  “I’ll make them.” Chris managed to wrestle the kettle from her, and got out the mugs, which had the same speckled pattern as his and Vicky’s cups at home—Di had donated her spares. He decided to use this as a route into the conversation he wanted to have. After stumbling over a line about Di being generous, always giving things to others, he segued into “That bracelet you gave Vicky is nice.”

  Was there a pause? Did she clang a saucepan to buy herself time?

  “Yeah, I thought it would suit her.”

  He stared at Di’s profile, bent over the sink. Her lips were pressed together, accentuating her overbite, and her dish-scrubbing had become more vigorous.

  Chris didn’t know what he’d hoped for. Of course Di would pick up on the need to cover for Vicky, even if the bracelet hadn’t come from her. The three sisters had a shared radar for defending one another.

  It doesn’t suit her, he wanted to snarl. Not at all.

  “Did you buy it for her, or was it yours?”

  “I bought it.” Her brush scratched manically at the saucepan. “Thought it might cheer her up a bit.”

  “Cheer her up? Is she . . . Has she said something to you?”

  “She’s just seemed a bit down since switching wards, don’t you think?”

  “Switching wards?”

  “Oh . . .” Di stopped her assault on the pan, her cheeks flushed. “I thought you knew.”

  “No, I—”

  They were interrupted by Vicky walking into the kitchen. She looked from one to the other, seeming to detect an atmosphere. “Everything okay?”

  Di leaped in: “Fine! Chris is kindly making coffee.”

  Vicky arched an eyebrow. The post-lunch coffees used to be his regular role, back when he’d had the energy and inclination to insist. Chris wondered if Vicky was thinking of the day she’d first brought him round here, how anxious he’d been for acceptance, and how they’d kissed in the car afterward, laughing about Chris calling Gav “Garth” and Di interrogating him about his intentions.

  Now Vicky glanced at her sister and at Chris again, before her face smoothed into that exasperating blankness.

  “Which one’s mine?” she asked, nodding toward the drinks.

  * * *

  —

  Chris was relieved when Vicky suggested they head off. As usual there was a lengthy good-bye process, new conversations budding on the doorstop, Polly throwing a tantrum because she didn’t want her aunties to leave. Chris waited on the pavement. He’d once asked Vicky whether she and her sisters found it hard to say good-bye because of being separated when they were young. She’d grinned, pecked his cheek, and said, “Nah, we do it because it drives our husbands up the wall.”

  As Polly began performing diversionary handstands, Chris gazed around the street as if to test whether this one, two miles from his own, gave him that same sense of being scrutinized. The house opposite had its curtains open, revealing a couple lounging at opposite ends of a sofa, reading different sections of the same newspaper, their feet entwined. With a stab of sadness, Chris turned away toward his car.

  He froze when he clapped eyes on it.

  There was a piece of paper on the windshield, tucked beneath the wipers. A chill zipped down his spine. His eyes swept the street again before settling on the note. It couldn’t be . . .

  Vicky appeared beside him. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He walked on, tripping slightly on an uneven paving slab. Vicky pulled out her phone and seemed preoccupied, reading messages. Then she lifted her head and noticed the note. “Oh, what’s that?”

  Chris snatched it before she could, and kept it out of her line of vision as he unfolded it.

  He almost choked on a rush of outward breath. It was just a message from one of Di’s fussy neighbors, asking “whom it may concern” not to park in front of their house. Chris tore it in half, relief and irritation clashing together.

  “There aren’t any parking restrictions here, mate,” he mumbled, glancing at number 52. “You don’t own this spot.”

  Vicky rolled her eyes—at Chris or at the neighbor, he wasn’t sure—and prompted him to unlock the car.

  As they drove home Chris felt shaken, hoping Vicky hadn’t noticed his reaction. She turned up the radio but Chris turned it down again and she looked at him in surprise.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d moved wards?” he asked.

  This was where a lot of their conversations seemed to happen: driving to and from places, each the captive audience of the other.

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Vic. It doesn’t suit you. When was it?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Cardiology.”

  He glanced toward her, but she was staring out of her window. “Did they make you move?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “I fancied a change, okay?”

  “Did something happen?”

  “I said no! Stop interrogating me.”

  “I just wish you’d tell me stuff.”

  She made a small sound through her nostrils.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You made a noise. Like a nose-sigh.” In the past, his spontaneous invention of the term might have made them both chuckle, dissipating the tension.

  “I’m just breathing,” she said. “I assume that’s allowed.”

  She flicked the radio back up. Chris drove on autopilot, his mind whirring. How man
y times had he driven between Di’s house and theirs? Past the florist where he’d bought Vicky tulips that one impulsive time; past the record shop where he’d once bumped into Paul Harlow and made painfully awkward small talk. How would he feel if somebody told him he’d never do this journey again, that the routines he often bemoaned could vanish in a flash?

  “Slow down, Chris,” Vicky said.

  He realized how fast he was driving, his hands tight on the wheel. Yet he didn’t slow. In fact, he swung around the next corner without braking, and Vicky lurched sideways. “Chris, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Did something happen?” he repeated, his face hot. “On the ward?”

  “No! Aren’t you listening?”

  He accelerated again. He wanted to shake her up, wake her up. Then he caught sight of her stricken face, her fingers gripping the door handle, and felt a surge of shame. His throat filled with bile as she morphed for an instant into Freya. He thrust his foot onto the brake to slow the car right down.

  “You don’t tell me everything either,” Vicky said once he’d been driving normally for a while.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t keep nagging you about why you’re so jumpy and weird lately,” she said, “so don’t nag me about what’s going on at work.”

  Chris let his hands slip to the base of the wheel. It was as if she was offering him a pact. Let’s agree to keep secrets. Agree to pretend. He wondered how far such a deal could possibly stretch. What would it take to shock them both out of their denial?

  19.

  PAUL

  Paul only realized how far he’d walked when the huge bulk of Richmond Hill loomed ahead. Checking his watch, he was shocked to find it was almost two p.m.: Two hours had passed since he’d left Yvette on the bridge. He’d been striding aimlessly along the river, fighting to get his head straight, to figure out what to do next.

  There were six messages from Steph on his phone, asking where he was. The final one said, Your parents are here. Come home.

  Paul spun around, almost colliding with a woman on a bike, and ran back in the direction of Kingston.

  Even the familiar sensation of wind streaming past his ears couldn’t obliterate his guilt. He’d achieved nothing for Freya. He’d added to Steph’s worry. And, on top of everything else, why had he lost his temper with Yvette? There had been a time when he’d considered her his only real friend. He knew it was in her job description, but she’d been the one person who’d actually seemed to get it. What it was like to be undercover, what it could cause you to do.

  She’d cried as Paul had told her about Freya’s disappearance. But, when it came down to it, he’d only been interested in whether she knew where Sanderson was. His emotions had got the better of him when she’d claimed Glover told her very little about cases or targets, past or present, only as much as she needed to counsel the undercovers. He had been particularly cagey about the Sanderson operation, she’d added, and though Paul knew that was true, he’d still stormed away from her, reverting to anger and mistrust. The old paranoia had him in its clutches again: Who was on his side? Who was real?

  Do you think there’s any chance Sanderson still lives in Nottingham? he’d pressed her. Still on the same estate, even?

  Yvette had eyed him with concern. You’re not thinking of going there?

  Paul hadn’t answered. He’d long ago promised himself he’d never go back.

  As he ran past the boats and paddling swans that were the landscape of his current life, he couldn’t help seeing the Chainwell Estate superimposed over it. Graffitied playgrounds, boarded-up pubs, vandalized bus stops. And the tower block that had been Paul’s parallel universe for three years. His mind’s eye dived through an upper-floor window, disturbing a flurry of memories. Mostly everyday domestic scenes, but always with something slightly amiss, a glance or a silence or an atmosphere.

  Sanderson’s oppressive presence. The sorrow that had weighed in the air.

  Nathalie silhouetted in the kitchen window, biting her shredded nails.

  Nathalie, Nathalie, Nathalie. If he allowed himself to think of her, it was usually in fragments: green eyes, thin wrists, dark hair on a white pillow. But lately the dots had begun to join up, the gaps to infill . . .

  It’s been pulled down, Yvette had told him: The one piece of information she’d had. The tower block. It was deemed unsafe. Nottingham City Council demolished it a few years ago.

  Paul had been ambushed by emotions, hearing that. Relief that he wouldn’t have to go inside it ever again; exasperation at another dead end; a swell of unhappiness he didn’t want to make sense of. He’d tried to destroy that place in his memory, and now he couldn’t fight the idea that he’d somehow made it happen for real.

  Yvette had suggested Freya’s disappearance might be unconnected to his past. In a different way from how Tom Glover had phrased it, with different motives, Paul hoped—but still with no effect. The symmetry between then and now was beginning to consume him. Yet he was no closer to tracing his daughter, to making sure she never became one of the tragic unfound.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as he got home, he smelled the Elizabeth Arden perfume his mum had worn for years, which Paul bought her unimaginatively every birthday. The scent was a burst of short-lived comfort. He could hear his parents’ voices from the spare room—so familiar, and sounding upset—but he went first into the living room, looking for Steph.

  It was empty. He stared at the papers scattered on the coffee table. Lists of names and phone numbers with ticks or crosses next to them. An annotated timeline in his dad’s writing: 7:50 left for school (Steph waved her off, gave driving lesson money); 8:45 met Zadie outside gates (normal); 1 p.m. driving lesson; 2 p.m. CW dropped her off (nobody saw); 2‒3 p.m. free period (unclear whether anybody saw her); 3 p.m. maybe not in last lesson (register in doubt). A flipbook of Freya’s last-known movements seemed to whir across Paul’s vision, tears pricking at his eyes.

  He jolted when he heard a loud clatter above his head, followed by what sounded like Steph crying out. As he dashed to the attic stairs he heard other sounds, scuffling and creaking, seeming to come from Freya’s bedroom.

  “Steph?” he shouted. “Is that you?”

  His mum came out of the spare room, following him up the stairs. “Paul, you’re back! What’s going on?”

  Paul pushed the door to Freya’s room. It wasn’t unusual for Steph to spend time there at the moment, among their daughter’s things, but now she was leaning over Freya’s bed frantically tearing off the sheets. Paul’s stomach pitched when he saw that the bed linen was soaked red. Steph panted as she stripped off two layers, the mattress below also stained crimson.

  “What the hell?” Paul’s voice emerged loud. “Are you hurt?” He studied her for cuts or wounds, but could see only dots of red on her sleeve.

  “No,” she said, “Urgh, stupid me . . .”

  Then he spotted the overturned tumbler on the bedside table. A glass of Freya’s favorite cherry Lucozade had sat there since before she’d gone. Steph must have knocked it off, spilled it over the bed. She mopped with a balled-up sheet as tributaries of Lucozade trickled everywhere. Paul’s mum righted the empty glass—a pointless gesture, really, but Paul wished he’d thought of it, instead of just standing, watching, his arms spread and empty.

  “Here, let me, Steph,” he said.

  “No, I’ll do it,” she snapped, and dragged the bed away from the wall so she could wipe down the side.

  As she did so, something dropped onto the floor.

  “What’s that?” Paul stepped forward and picked it up.

  Both his mum and Steph paused, looking toward him, and he realized it was because he’d become totally still, frowning at what he’d found. It was a glossy strip of images taken in a photo booth. Freya was on the right of all four pictures, smiling,
sticking out her tongue in the final one, but with something unfocused about her eyes. It took Paul a moment to identify the man with her. Arms slung round shoulders, the pair seemed pretty familiar with one another. In two of the shots, their cheeks touched.

  “Who is that?” said his mum while Steph stood in shocked silence beside him.

  Paul grappled to put a name to the face. He hadn’t really met him properly, hadn’t seen him around for a while, but remembered he was called something unusual.

  It was Emma’s partner. The guy who lived downstairs with her, or used to at least.

  Paul’s skin grew hot. Why would Freya have this man’s picture down the side of her bed?

  PART TWO

  20.

  KATE

  Twenty-five years earlier

  Our opportunity comes sooner than expected. I hear Nick telling Mum he’s got a “work thing” on Tuesday night, so he probably won’t be round. Becca says I should make myself scarce, let her handle things, so I tell Mum I’m going to a friend’s house to work on a homework project after school. Part of me feels jealous that Mum might open up to Becca rather than me, but hope overrides it. This could be our only chance.

  Actually, I don’t have many friends at school. People don’t want to partner with me because they think I’m a daydreamer: I melt into my own thoughts too often. They don’t realize that when I’m one to one with somebody—like Becca, say—it’s as if my on switch has been pressed. Sometimes Becca and I laugh until we cry at pretty much nothing. And when we put our minds to it, like now, we can achieve things too.

  I leave school and walk in the opposite direction from home, wandering through the area with all the colorful fabric shops, spicy smells, sari-clad women fluttering through the streets. Soon I’m crossing green fields rimmed by broken fences, the grass cool through my thin soles. When buildings loom in the distance, I realize I’m on the outskirts of the airport. A plane takes off on the horizon, silhouetted in the orangey twilight; another follows and I imagine them queued up, waiting to launch themselves into the sky.