The Downstairs Neighbor

by Helen Cooper

  24.

  KATE

  Twenty-five years earlier

  I can’t let this happen. Can’t let them go away together for a long weekend. Imagine what he could do to my mum in three whole days far from home.

  He sprang the idea on her, just after I’d persuaded her to let Becca stay. For the past week, Becca and I have been pretending we’ve forgotten all about our suspicions. Becca’s been on her best behavior, trying not to upset Mum, but an atmosphere hums in the air. Mum is sometimes subdued; sometimes falsely, painfully cheery. Nick’s moods are up and down too. Some days he acts like our protector: He fixes things in the flat, deals with dodgy-looking people hanging round the tower block, insists Mum puts her feet up while he makes tea. Other days I’ll get home from school to find they’ve sent Becca out for chips, and Nick will be smoking on the balcony while Mum’s in her room or in the bath, door closed. And I’ll know they’ve been arguing.

  And now this.

  A surprise break, an early birthday present. As Mum sits at the kitchen table and tells me about it, she tries to seem excited but her eyes are empty.

  Don’t go, I long to say. Please don’t go.

  “The Cotswolds,” she says, smiling vaguely. “Lovely, hey?”

  “I thought we might do something special for Becca’s last weekend,” I say.

  “Well, you two can. You’ll have more fun without us.”

  Doesn’t she remember the fun we all used to have together, before him? Creating our own cinema by turning off the living-room lights and heating up popcorn. Going to the library café for banana milkshakes when Mum and Auntie Rach had been paid.

  “She said Auntie Rach might come up to fetch her,” I lie. “Don’t you want to be here when she comes?”

  “I thought Becca was getting the train back.”

  “Rach wants to see you.”

  She fixes me with a searching look, then stares toward the window, two grooves etching the bridge of her nose.

  Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go. You don’t want to, I can tell.

  “Rach will just have to see me another time,” she says briskly. “Nick’s gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this.”

  * * *

  —

  Becca and I try to hatch a plan. We consider involving Auntie Rach, maybe asking her to phone up and persuade Mum to stay at home, but Becca isn’t keen. She’s not getting on with her mum at the moment, she admits. They’re always butting heads these days, going through spells of arguing or not speaking (while Uncle Jack keeps well out of it), but I’m too stressed to ask her what it’s all about this time.

  None of our plans seems fail-safe. Some are ridiculous. The one we keep coming back to is telling the police.

  “All they’ll do is talk to your mum, though,” Becca says, in the worldly way that sometimes reassures me, sometimes drives me mad. “And if she won’t admit anything, there’s nothing more they can do.”

  “They could arrest him!”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Kay. And do you even know where the police station is?”

  I stall. Of course not. I don’t know anything. I’m useless.

  I stand up and look frantically around my room as if it might be hiding among my things. “We could phone 999?”

  “That’s for emergencies.”

  “This is an emergency! He could kill her!”

  “Kate.” Becca leaps up and puts her arms around me, rocking and shushing, telling me it’ll be okay. I sob into her shoulder, wetting the thin fabric of her dress.

  * * *

  —

  I barely sleep for the rest of the week. On Thursday Mum’s on an early shift, so she kisses me good-bye and goes off to work while I’m still in my pajamas and Becca’s still asleep. Nick left even earlier. The mornings feel lighter when he isn’t at the breakfast table. In the quiet that Mum leaves behind, I slip into her room.

  It feels intimate—wrong—to be in her bedroom when she’s not home. The duvet is rucked up to expose the wrinkled corner of a sheet. The pretend-gold bracelet I bought her sits coiled at the back of her nightstand, no longer inseparable from her wrist. It looks cheap in this light, childish and flimsy, and my skin prickles with shame.

  I turn on the spot, eyes roaming over photos and furniture that seem newly alien, knowing yet not knowing what I’m looking for. This room feels like a foreign country now. Out of bounds. I remember when there were no borders between her space and mine.

  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?

  Guilt stirs as I slide open the bedside drawer to see a black hairbrush, a packet of aspirin, an out-of-date magazine. Turning to the wardrobe, I glide my fingers over the dresses and pretty skirts she never wears anymore. I nose the soft fabrics, her scent trapped in them, like a memory.

  Just as I’m about to retreat, my gaze falls on something at the bottom of the wardrobe. A wad of light blue fabric scrunched into the shadows of the back corner. I reach down to pick it up, but as it unfurls, shock makes me fling it away. It hits the mirror and drops to the floor, and I see it again: a dark lake of red encrusted on the front of one of her T-shirts.

  I stand dazed. Heart thumping, I spread out the top on the carpet and stare at the dried blood, trailing my fingertips across the stain. Vomit surges into my throat as my thoughts scatter, crazy and panicked. My mummy, my mummy, my mummy.

  * * *

  —

  Now I know I have to act. I stuff the top into my schoolbag and charge out. I’d feel braver if Becca was with me but I can’t waste any time, don’t want my nerve to fail.

  I ask four different strangers before I find someone who knows where the police station is. Reciting the directions over and over, I stumble through the streets until I reach the gray building with one-way windows. I hate going into any place I don’t know: I’m never sure how to introduce myself, what I’m meant to do. I remember my first day at secondary school, when I accidentally walked into the staffroom and a dozen teachers’ heads swiveled toward me.

  Pushing through the front doors, I stand for a moment in the foyer. My vision is full of bright spirals and I’m burning hot from the rush to get here. To my left is a waiting area where two people sit in tired silence. One has a plaster cast on her wrist and the other is aggressively chewing—I can’t tell if it’s gum or the insides of his cheeks.

  I shuffle up to the wide reception, which has clear glass panels right the way along, like in the post office where Mum works but higher and wider. The people behind are surprisingly far away, sitting at separate desks typing busily. I try waiting until someone notices me, then eventually tap on the window. A woman glances up and heaves herself out of her chair.

  “Can I help?”

  “I’m here to . . . I need to talk to a policeman . . . or woman.”

  “You’re looking at one.” Her tone isn’t nasty, but I blush and my tongue knots.

  “I just need to tell someone . . .” My hand flutters toward my bag, where Mum’s bloodied top is balled up beside my school things.

  “Have you witnessed a crime?”

  My hand shies away. “Not exactly.”

  “Have you done something?” She cocks her head. “Is there something you want to admit to?”

  “No, no!” I shake my head, choked by tears. “I don’t want to say it out here,” I whisper.

  I’m not sure whether I imagine her cluck of impatience. She goes over to her desk and returns with a clipboard and a piece of paper.

  “Why don’t you fill out this form?” She nods toward the chairs, and I recoil from the chewing man and the broken-armed woman.

  Normally I’d jump at the chance to write things down. I’m much better with words on paper. But the boxes and the dotted lines look so confusing: How will I know I’m ticking the right things? Will it go on a permanent record?

  “Can
’t I talk to someone in private?” I ask.

  The woman sighs. “Wait here. I’ll see if one of the interview rooms is free. Can’t promise anything, though. I keep telling them these facilities aren’t up to scratch, we need an extension . . .” She wanders away.

  At first I breathe out with relief, but while she’s gone I mull over what she said. Interview room. I picture two police officers firing questions at me, leaning in close, doing good cop/bad cop. Rationally I know it won’t be like that, but sweat breaks out on my face.

  I imagine them taking Mum’s top and sending it away for tests. She’ll know I’ve been in her room, rummaged through her things. They’ll send someone round and she’ll get upset and angry, and her refusal to admit what’s going on will make me look like a liar. Nick will see how easy it is to crush my attempts to help her. Confirmation, once and for all, that Mum won’t betray him.

  A photocopier on the other side of the screen starts to snarl and beep. The man in the waiting area shouts, “How much fucking longer?” Suddenly the girl with the broken arm sits forward and pukes onto the floor, the smell instant and horrible.

  This isn’t right. It no longer feels right.

  Before the policewoman has even returned, I am gone.

  25.

  EMMA

  Zeb’s Skype profile picture was frozen on the screen, mocking her with its stillness as the “calling Zeb” icon danced in the center. Then, like a miracle, the static image vanished and was replaced by a moving, breathing Zeb. His hair was longer, and his face seemed thin—though his shoulders looked more muscular. There was a window behind him with a view onto a dusty yard. It was as if he’d been cut-and-pasted onto an alien backdrop.

  She blinked back tears, wishing she could shed her unease. This was her son. Her Zeb.

  “Hello, stranger!”

  “Hey, Mum.” It didn’t help that his voice was out of sync with the movement of his mouth, tilting their conversation off balance.

  “How are you, Zebbie?”

  “I’m . . . good.”

  “Yeah?” Emma leaned forward, eager for reassurance. She tried to keep her eyes on him rather than the background, but it was hard not to wonder who else was around. “Really?”

  “Yes, Mum, really.”

  “Well, that’s great.” There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but each seemed fraught with possible conflict.

  “How ’bout you?” He surprised her by reciprocating. “You said there was something urgent?”

  Emma wondered where to begin. Her eyes scoured his face, looking for other changes, her breath becoming choppy as she felt the distance between them, the barrier of the screen, the weak signal.

  Suddenly she noticed a dark pink mark on Zeb’s hand. She pointed, frowning: “Hey, what’s that?”

  “This?” He lifted his hand and she saw it properly: a wide, deep cut across his palm.

  “How did you get that?”

  “Cutting open a box.”

  “Zeb, it looks bad! Did you go to hospital?”

  “Had a couple of stitches.” He dropped his hand. “Looks worse than it is.”

  She knew it was just a cut but it seemed to represent all her fears. You shouldn’t be there. You should be with me.

  As she tried to stop staring at his hand, she saw movement behind him. Someone had appeared in the yard: A man with long brown hair, wearing navy overalls, was dragging a bag of gravel toward a shed. Emma’s heart turned over. Robin. Zeb must have noticed the slip in her attention because he twisted around and the two men waved at each other. Emma composed herself, so that when he turned back she could be rational and calm.

  It was difficult, though. Her mouth was so dry.

  “Zeb.” She focused on him, not the yard. “You know Freya who lives above us?”

  Zeb’s attention swung back. “The blonde girl?”

  “Yes.” She glanced toward her own window. The two rows of trees were head-banging in the wind, the posters of Freya clinging on tight. “Have you . . . seen anything about her online?”

  “I haven’t been on much. The connection’s crap here. Why, what about her?”

  “She . . . she’s gone missing.”

  The screen blanked, making her jolt in surprise.

  “Oh! Zeb, you still there?”

  There was a crackle and his image reappeared. “Think we lost video for a second,” he said.

  “Yeah . . .” She was discombobulated. Part of her wished the picture had remained blank. It might be easier to do this blind. She knew she needed to see his face, though. To be sure he’s telling the truth, a tiny part of her acknowledged before she shoved it away.

  “Freya’s missing?” Zeb seemed to say her name with greater familiarity now. “Really?”

  Emma nodded. “Three days.”

  “Shit.” Zeb rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, the cut visible again. His fingers were calloused, too, with white plaster dust on their tips. Emma’s gaze darted toward Robin in the background, now leaning on a spade contemplating a stack of paving slabs.

  For a moment he seemed to look straight at her. She jerked her eyes back to her son.

  “And her mum found some photos,” she said, all in a rush. “Of you and her in one of those photo booths. Which confused me, because I didn’t even know you were friends.”

  “We’re not.”

  Emma’s arms grew cold. With an almost subconscious gesture she reached to her left and turned up the thermostat. She should be thrifty with her utilities, but this spring day suddenly had bite.

  “We only . . .” Zeb said, “we spent one night together . . . not like that.”

  She made herself stay quiet, waiting, steadying her breath. But when Zeb clammed up, she couldn’t help prompting him: “What happened?”

  There was another long pause before he launched into his explanation at last.

  “It was a couple of months ago. I bumped into her in the park. I was sitting on a bench, thinking about stuff, and so was she by the look of it. I wasn’t going to say anything more than hi, but then I realized she was totally pissed.”

  “Was she?” Emma couldn’t imagine Freya drunk. Healthy, golden Freya. Zeb’s sketch flashed into her mind: the girl on the merry-go-round with her arms in the air.

  “I thought I’d better check she was okay. She was clearly upset—she was saying all this stuff, it didn’t make a lot of sense . . . She had a bottle of gin and asked me to have a drink with her.”

  “What was she upset about?”

  “I couldn’t work it out at first. I got the impression she hadn’t talked to anyone else, but maybe I was able to rela—” He stopped. Emma looked at him. He’d been about to say he could relate to Freya, to her troubles. Before she could ask how, he hurried on: “She got kind of giddy after a while. She sat in the playground and she was laughing, saying she’d got a plan . . .”

  “You drew her.” It popped out before she could think it through.

  Zeb paused, his face clouding. “You looked at my sketches?”

  Emma flushed. “I didn’t think you’d mind. They’re really good, Zeb. But I just wondered about—”

  “Don’t go through my stuff, Mum. My sketchbook was in the drawer. It’s not like it was just lying around.”

  She saw him take a breath, eyes closing, lips tightening. Was he counting to ten? Had he learned that in his anger-management sessions?

  What had happened to the little boy who used to have air-guitar contests with his grandparents, who’d held the end of a tape measure for hours when Emma had been fitting out the shop, who’d told his nursery teacher he was going to marry his mum when he grew up, as if it were a viable option? And what had happened, even, to her teenager who loved music and cooking and comics?

  You happened, she thought, seeing Robin’s fuzzy outline in her mind, an
ger and fear blooming again.

  Zeb opened his eyes. “I haven’t got much time,” he said, curt now. “There’s stuff to finish in the garden before it goes dark.”

  It was so tempting to swerve the conversation toward something easier for their last few minutes. She had to hear the end of his story, though. What he knew about Freya.

  “What else happened, Zeb?”

  He gazed out of the screen, not quite meeting her eye, though it was hard to tell whether that was a side effect of Skype or a deliberate avoidance.

  “We messed about on the play area for a bit longer, drinking and racing each other up and down the climbing frame. Then we decided to head home. We had those photos taken in the booth at the station, just for fun. But on the train she got really upset again. Started talking about her parents . . .”

  “Her parents?” Emma glanced at the ceiling as if she’d be able to see into the Harlows’ flat. There was a creak of floorboards, the tapping of a pipe. Zeb seemed pensive now. For a moment the light silhouetted him completely, like a television interviewee with their identity protected.

  Emma thrust away the mental image of Robin hovering at the edges of the frame.

  When Zeb looked back at her, his eyes were wide. “Parents think they can keep secrets from their kids. But we find stuff out and it’s even more shitty because of the lies.”

  She felt like she’d been slapped. As Zeb plowed on, explaining the rest of what Freya had told him, she had to work hard to concentrate. She knew how important it was but she just wanted to sob at his pointed comparison, to defend herself, to apologize, to rage.

  26.

  CHRIS

  Di had finally left, with a semi-threatening shout of “Speak soon, Chris!” along the hall. Vicky had gone for a lie-down without another word. Chris had slipped away and was driving through a flurry of wind and rain toward Freya’s school.

  He wouldn’t linger there, of course. He just needed to start at that location so he could retrace the route they’d taken three days before, checking for CCTV cameras that might have picked them up that afternoon. The escalating rain made it difficult. His wipers shrieked each time they swept across the glass—he’d been meaning to get some new blades for weeks. He used to take an embarrassing amount of pride in maintaining his and Vicky’s modest cars. It was the one thing he was good at, and he’d especially liked doing it for her. She’d always rolled her eyes when he’d lectured about oil levels and preventing clutch wear, but she’d liked it really, he could tell. These days it was harder to please or amuse her, harder even to know whether she was happy or sad.