The Downstairs Neighbor

by Helen Cooper

  Steph’s heart boomed as she climbed the stairs. I can deal with anything else now. Just let me not be too late. She should have come sooner, told the police, done everything differently. Denial and fear had paralyzed her at first. Then, for a brief moment, she’d hoped she could keep her own secrets, hold on to her life and save Freya. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But now she was here and ready to sacrifice everything except her daughter.

  She opened the door at the top to reveal a deserted living room. Her eyes picked out details in the normally tidy space: a desk drawer pulled out, coins dotting the carpet below. A scruffy holdall on the sofa, bulging with clothes.

  A creak from the back of the house made her right hand fly to her left sleeve, finding the outline of the knife. Familiar footsteps traveled down the small corridor that separated the bedroom from the lounge.

  61.

  KATE

  Twenty-five years earlier

  The next day, I know I’ll go back. It’s inevitable that I’ll slip away from school, catch a bus into town, take the same seat in the gallery, and bite my nails until warm blood trickles beneath my tongue. To my relief, Mum isn’t there. Maybe she can’t face Auntie Rach and Uncle Jack after the evidence she gave yesterday. Maybe she can’t face any of it.

  It’s the defense’s turn today: the short, round man, whose belly protrudes from his black gown so it won’t hang closed. I glance toward my aunt and uncle, clasping hands on the other side of the gallery, and wonder if Becca’s lawyer realizes how much hope is resting on his curly-wigged head. In the solace of the school library this morning, I managed to find a book on English law. It said the defense doesn’t have to prove anything, only show “reasonable doubt.” I roll the phrase around my brain, trying to wring some comfort out of it.

  Becca’s lawyer questions Nick’s GP first.

  “Why did you prescribe antidepressants for Mr. Wood?”

  “He was going through a difficult period. Insomnia, feeling anxious . . . It was just a temporary measure.”

  “Were you concerned about his state of mind?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  I can see what the defense man is trying to do. Reminding the jury of the possibility of suicide. Because possibility surely means doubt. But then the prosecutor stands up to cross-examine the doctor, and shoots to the heart of it: “Did you think Mr. Wood was a suicide risk?”

  The doctor ponders. “I can never rule it out, of course. But I actually got the impression he wanted to address his mental state so he could be there for his partner.”

  “If Mr. Wood was intending to commit suicide, don’t you think he would have taken a large amount of his antidepressants, or perhaps something like paracetamol, rather than a dose of unknown medication he found lying around?”

  “Objection!” calls Becca’s lawyer. “This is speculation.”

  The judge agrees. But, again, the prosecutor’s logic trails in the air, like smoke.

  And although I presume the defense lawyer knows what he’s doing, I can’t help feeling his suggestions contradict one another as he continues. Maybe Nick took the pills on purpose, maybe accidentally, maybe they were Becca’s pills or maybe they weren’t. We can’t prove it, he’s trying to insist, and sometimes he sounds convincing. At others the prosecutor smashes her manicured hand right through his theories.

  My hope lifts and dives so many times I feel sick.

  Then it’s over for another day, and when I get home I think Mum suspects where I’ve been but she doesn’t say anything. I make chicken nuggets and burned potato waffles because she’s too tired to cook, and there’s something comforting about the childish meal, something that makes me want to curl up on her knee.

  * * *

  —

  Another thing I read in the law book from school was about the defendant giving evidence. The person accused of the crime has to choose whether to take the stand and be questioned themselves. My first instinct was Why wouldn’t you? It’s your chance to put your side across. But then I think about what that means, in Becca’s case: clinging to a lie in front of all those people, being cross-examined by the Human Crow and scrutinized more closely than any of the other witnesses.

  It keeps me awake for the next few nights, the possibility that she might break down and reveal everything.

  I dream about the scene, and when I’m back in the public gallery on the final day, with the judge announcing that the last witness for the defense will be Becca, I feel as if I’ve been submerged in my own nightmare. The light in the courtroom seems hazy; people’s voices are slurred; my legs sink into the wooden bench with dreamlike paralysis. For a moment the only clear point in the room is Becca, stepping up to the box, taking her oath.

  “Miss Fielding,” her defense barrister begins, “can you clarify for the court whether or not you were taking carbamazepine at the time of the victim’s death?”

  Becca’s voice is hoarse, as if she hasn’t used it for a while. “Yes, I was.”

  “Why did you originally tell the police—at your aunt’s home and subsequently at the police station—that you weren’t?”

  She clears her throat. “I got confused. There’d been so much happening. And I was thinking of stopping because it was making me feel ill. But Dr. Holmes had told me not to just stop.”

  “Did you have some with you while you were staying with your aunt and cousin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they accessible to Mr. Wood?”

  “They were in Kate’s room.” The mention of my name makes me breathe harder. “They weren’t locked away or anything. So I guess they would’ve been accessible.”

  “And did you notice any missing after the evening in question?”

  “No, but I didn’t count them, just took my dose as normal.”

  “Did you notice you were a number of tablets short at any point following Mr. Wood’s death?”

  “No. I didn’t get to the end of the pack before I changed my medication, though. If I had, I might’ve noticed if there were fewer left than there should’ve been.”

  There’s something rehearsed about the exchange. I wonder if it’s only me who notices, perhaps because I know Becca so well.

  “Did you administer your tablets to Mr. Wood in any way?” the defense lawyer asks, making me freeze.

  Becca replies firmly, “No.”

  “Did you get on with him?”

  “Yes. I admit I had a bad first impression of him, but as I got to know him better, we got on fine.”

  “So did you talk to your aunt and express concerns about him?”

  “Just once. After that I changed my opinion of him.”

  “There were no further disagreements?”

  “No.”

  When the defense’s questions are over, I feel a fraction calmer. It’s hard to tell, but I think it went okay. I try to imagine myself as a member of the jury: What would I be making of it all?

  The prosecutor is on her feet, striding forward. The pace picks up. She asks her questions at speed, one after another, making waves in the courtroom.

  “Why did you change your medication, Miss Fielding?”

  “Because it was making me feel sick.”

  “Not because Mr. Wood died from a reaction to that particular drug?”

  “I-I didn’t even know that was what he’d died from. Not then.”

  “You had no inkling?”

  “How could I?” Becca’s tugging at her ponytail. “I had no idea he’d even taken them.”

  “You didn’t try to cover up the fact that they were your pills?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t cover it up, would it?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I mean, it hasn’t.”

  “So your plan didn’t work?”

  “No—no, it wasn’t my plan. But if it had been, it would’ve been
a pretty stupid one.”

  “I see.” The prosecutor arches one eyebrow. My head is reeling from the quick-fire questions. Becca looks like they’re having the same effect on her.

  “Why did you lie to the police about what medication you were taking?”

  “I’ve already said, I just got muddled.”

  “So, if I’ve got this right, you thought you hadn’t packed any pills for your stay at your aunt’s flat? Because you were, as you said originally to the police, ‘between medications.’”

  “That’s what I thought—”

  “Even though, as you’ve just confirmed, they were in your cousin’s bedroom, where you were also sleeping, so you would’ve seen and taken them every day?”

  “Of course I remember that now.”

  “But when the police asked—twice—if Mr. Wood might’ve had access to carbamazepine around the time he died, you said no.”

  “I got muddled.”

  “You weren’t trying to cover anything up?”

  The judge interrupts: “Please move on. The witness has already answered these questions.”

  “Of course, m’lord. I’m merely trying to get everything clear. I don’t want the jury to be muddled also.”

  She’s having a joke now. Doing a victory jig even before the end. Tears prod at the backs of my eyes, but I force them away: It’s not over yet.

  Hold it together, I want to tell my cousin, who’s visibly shaking on the stand. I remember what happened in my nightmare and a stream of cold air wafts down my back.

  “Did Mr. Wood make sexual advances toward you?”

  “Um, no.”

  “So why did you tell your aunt that he did?”

  “I didn’t. Not in so many words.”

  “But you implied it?”

  “Perhaps accidentally.”

  “Did you get muddled again?”

  Becca flushes. “I . . . I just got a bad feeling about him at first and I wanted to . . .”

  “Wanted to what?”

  “To make sure.”

  “Make sure?”

  “Make sure Aunt Laura was okay.”

  “And if she wasn’t, what action did you plan to take?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “You’ve responded violently in the past when you’ve thought people close to you were being treated badly.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “We’ve heard evidence of fighting, bullying . . .”

  “That’s just school stuff! It’s nothing to do with any of this!”

  “And what is ‘this’ exactly?”

  “This—this case . . .” Becca’s voice cracks, tears glossing her eyes.

  “Objection!” her lawyer shouts. “The witness is being intimidated.”

  The prosecutor holds up her palms. “No further questions.”

  Becca seems to draw herself together, swallowing her tears. Just before she’s led back to her seat behind the glass, she looks in my direction for the first time. Her eyes find mine, as if she’s known exactly where I’ve been sitting the whole while, but panic makes me cast my gaze down to my lap. There’s a hole in my school tights that I must have been picking at throughout the questioning—it gapes right across my thigh.

  Energy swirls around the room like dust that won’t settle. Becca’s lawyer leaps out of his seat, as if remembering he’s supposed to be doing something, and fluffs his words as he tells the judge that the case for the defense is concluded.

  62.

  STEPH

  “What are you doing here?” Becca said, a blaze of fear in her eyes. Then she adjusted her tone, as if to sound casual: “You’re not due to visit until tomorrow.”

  Steph was incredulous as they stared at one another across the living room of the maisonette. Was Becca really going to act like everything was normal? They hadn’t spoken since Freya had disappeared, so officially her cousin was oblivious, but surely they were past that now. Hadn’t Becca sent somebody with a note, only an hour ago, to summon Steph? To invite this confrontation and whatever it would lead to?

  “You’re leaving.” Steph gestured at the packed bag lying on Becca’s sofa.

  Becca opened her mouth, then pressed it closed again. Steph saw the familiar nervous blotches on her neck. Her cousin’s hair was long and unstyled now, her skin dull from so much time spent indoors, her clothes plain. Steph always felt conscious of her own tailored work suits and salon-smooth hair when she visited. In a way she had become Becca, had borrowed her sleek style and social confidence as she’d built her new life.

  “Where is she?” Steph rushed forward, the words spitting out. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Becca backed off toward the wall. “What?”

  “I know you’re behind this. I didn’t want to believe it at first . . .” Steph’s eyes scanned the room again, searching for any signs that Freya had been there.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then why are you running away?”

  “It’s best for both of us if I leave. You’ve got other things to think about than me.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Becca suddenly stood firm, lifting her chin. “Well, you’re the expert on that, Kate.”

  Steph flinched at her former name. Becca threw it at her occasionally, when she was having a bad day. Clearly Steph had underestimated the depth of her resentment all these years. There had been signs, of course: the times when the visits had felt strained, or when Becca had seemed barely there, turning her back to gaze through a crack in the curtains. But there had also been lingering affection. A sense that they had gone through a journey and that, whatever had happened, they were still family, still inescapably tied. We did it together, Becca had once said, the only time they had really discussed their crime, and her conviction. Telling them you were involved wouldn’t have changed anything for me, even later. But maybe she’d been trying to convince herself. She hadn’t looked at Steph as she had said it, hadn’t wanted to talk about it for long.

  “Tell me the truth.” Now Steph couldn’t gauge her own volume: She might have been shouting or whispering. The knife slithered down her arm and emerged from her sleeve. Becca recoiled in shock.

  Steph backed her into the wall, lifting the knife to her throat. “What have you done?”

  The air seemed to tremble around them. Becca mouthed something, as if afraid to speak aloud with the blade so close. Steph moved it even closer. “Tell me.”

  “Oh, God,” Becca said softly.

  “Tell me!”

  “Please . . . it wasn’t supposed to go this far.”

  Steph inhaled sharply. For a second her vision went black. She grazed Becca’s jawbone with the knife. “What wasn’t?”

  Tears gleamed in her cousin’s eyes. “Freya’s everything to you—”

  “Yes.”

  “You always avoid telling me too much about your life, but you can’t resist gushing about Freya. That’s how I knew she was the way to get at you.”

  Steph’s lungs seemed to crush up into her throat. Becca had gone after Freya. Because of her. The confirmation made her buckle. It took all her strength to stay standing.

  “I only wanted to scare you.” Becca began to weep. “To make you feel like your perfect life was vulnerable, it could be snatched away, like mine was . . .” Her words gathered momentum, flowing fast and angry. “I’ve been your dirty secret, kept here in this house. Before that I was locked up for something you did, something I protected you from, out of loyalty, and love . . .”

  “I—”

  “I wanted to make you feel even a tiny bit of what I’ve been through. You haven’t got a clue what prison’s like! In all these years, you’ve never even asked. And I’m still a prisoner—I can’t get a job, have any freedom. You keep control of me, make
sure I don’t interfere with your precious new existence . . .”

  “You were the one who skipped parole. You could’ve rebuilt your life, stayed out of mine—”

  “You don’t get it, do you? My life was over the second I was convicted. There was no way to go back.”

  An image came into Steph’s head: Becca’s pale, stunned face turning toward her as she’d been led out of the courtroom following the verdict. Quick on its heels, the moment Steph had strolled out of her comfortable home twenty-one years later, texting thirteen-year-old Freya to make sure she’d got to school, and stopped dead because Becca had been standing in front of her. Aged and dull-eyed. The embodiment of everything Steph had tried to escape.

  Becca had skipped parole, left the halfway house where she’d been living since her release, and made it her mission to reappear in her cousin’s life. She’d figured out Steph’s workplace from a comment Steph had let slip the one time she’d visited her in prison, and from that her new name, eventually her address. And Steph couldn’t turn her away, though she’d bundled her hastily into her car that first morning, out from under the neighborhood’s gaze. Of course she’d had to provide her with a home, money, a strange kind of companionship and protection. What she couldn’t offer was a real place in her new family. If she had, maybe things would have been different.