by Danuta Reah
He was frowning slightly now. ‘You didn’t tell them?’ She shook her head. He was watching her closely, his eyes narrowed. ‘Why didn’t you, Roz?’ His voice was quiet, but his whole demeanour was alert as if the fatigue of a few minutes ago had left him.
‘I don’t know.’ It sounded unconvincing in her own ears. She knew why she hadn’t told them.
‘Bloody Roz.’ He was speaking slowly, but his fingers were white where he was gripping his cup. He looked at her, shaking his head. ‘You thought I did it, didn’t you?’ His face was cold.
She didn’t think that, but she could remember her moment of doubt and she felt herself going red. ‘I thought…I didn’t know what I…’ Nathan’s fist, smacking into the side of her head, her hands scrabbling for the banister and missing…
‘Right.’ He stood up. ‘Well, Roz, I might just get a bit pissed off with you, and God knows what I’d be capable of then.’ His voice was calm and reflective, but his face was set, white and angry. She knew from past experience that it would be useless trying to talk to him when he was like this.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wait.’ She wasn’t going to make excuses. He stopped at the door. She went back to her study and got one of the disks with the copies of Gemma’s files. He was still waiting when she went back, his hand on the door, his face expressionless. She pushed the disk at him. ‘Gemma’s files,’ she said. ‘From the laptop.’ He looked at her blankly, then nodded and put the disk in his pocket.
She wanted to stop him leaving, but she knew him well enough to know there was no point. She felt the swirl of cold air round her as he opened the door, heard it click quietly shut behind him. She heard the sound of the gate. She heard the engine burst into life, the asymmetrical beat of the idling V-twin, and then the sound of the engine rising to a scream before he changed up – a cry of rage in the silence. And she stayed at the table staring at her coffee as she heard him drive off into the night.
11
Hull, Thursday morning
Anna woke up with the sun in her eyes. It was shining on to her face from the skylight above her head. She could see the birds high up in the air, turning and wheeling in the pale morning light. The sky was blue, with a clarity that suggested frost. The couch she was lying on was lumpy, and the blanket smelt of dust, but the attic room was a haven with a door that locked and a high window that only the birds could see into. Matthew had been apologetic. ‘It’s not very comfortable,’ he said. But it was safe and secret, and at last he had given her some hope.
She had spent the evening before in the dark back room of the Welfare Advice Centre, lying on the couch, drifting into a doze sometimes, but aware all the time that just beyond the door the work of the centre was going on. The banging of the typewriter, the sound of voices, the sound of filing cabinet drawers being opened and shut, made her realize that anyone, at any minute, could walk through that door and find her there. She had seen Nasim’s look of anxiety when the door had announced an arrival earlier. She was not meant to be here, she knew that. She was putting Matthew and Nasim at risk. She was going to have to leave, and the thought filled her with dread.
As the light had faded and the rain began to fall, drumming against the window, splashing down from a broken gutter, Matthew had come back. Anna had been sitting in the dark in a half daze, her mind wandering around images of her childhood, images she retreated to more and more. There was a tree that grew in front of the house, a beech like the trees that grew in the forests high in the mountains. When she was a child, her father had looped a rope over one of the branches and made a swing where she could play. Later, she would sit Krisha on the seat and swing her while the little girl shrieked and giggled. She would do that when Krisha was refusing to wear the special shoes for her damaged foot, when she would throw herself on the ground and scream and kick her feet, and…the bundle lying half in and half out of the door, tiny on the ground, with the sole of a shoe pointing towards the bushes where…
Her eyes had snapped open. She was on the couch in the back room at the advice centre and Matthew was standing in the door looking at her. ‘Anna,’ he had said, ‘I’m sorry. I woke you.’
She shook her head. She hadn’t been sleeping and she was glad to have been pulled out of her waking dream. Matthew was looking serious, and she felt the tension of anxiety. She knew she couldn’t stay here forever, but she dreaded the time of decisions.
‘I do the night shift tonight. Nasim’s gone,’ he had said. ‘Listen, Anna…’ He had seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say. ‘Are you hungry?’ He was carrying a bag. ‘I made sandwiches. Cheese. And I’ve got some apples. We can have some tea in a minute.’
Anna had moved along the settee to make space for him to sit down. ‘Thank you,’ she said. The sandwiches were made with the funny soft bread they had here. She had thought that she was hungry, but the sandwiches were tasteless and her hunger seemed to go after she had eaten one. It seemed an oddly unsatisfactory meal for someone who was working all night. ‘This is all you are having?’
He had smiled and shaken his head. ‘I had a proper tea earlier. When I went home. This is just extra.’ He’d made them for her.
‘Where is home?’ She knew nothing about him except that he worked here, he’d helped her when she’d been in trouble, he’d understood without being told and he’d been kind. ‘Your wife? Your children?’
He had looked down at the floor. ‘I’m not married, Anna.’ He was quiet for a few minutes then he said, ‘I live on my own. I look after myself and I work here.’ He had looked up at her and smiled again. His eyes were kind. ‘That’s enough for me.’
She thought about his twisted back and the awkward way he walked. Of course. He was like Krisha. Born with it. Women had not wanted him. ‘You work here?’
He had nodded. ‘It’s voluntary work. I get a small pension because of…’ He gestured at his back. ‘So I’ve always done some kind of voluntary work. To put something back.’
He had looked down again, and then looked at her. ‘That’s something I want to talk about.’ There was a brief silence, then he said slowly, as if he were choosing his words with care, ‘Anna. Your parents were killed. You came here illegally, but you were very young. You might be able to stay. At least for a while. Will you let me find out?’
She stared at her hands. Might be able to stay…She had realized, after she ran away from Angel, that he had lied to her. But it must be too late. She was a prostitute, she was a thief. She had looked at Matthew. ‘I have…’ She didn’t know how to say it.
‘I know, Anna.’ He did know. She remembered the sadness on his face the first time she talked to him. She hated him knowing. She wanted all that part of her life painted over, blotted out the way her father painted over the words that were written on the wall. ‘Anna,’ he had said, ‘you are not to blame for what happened to you. Let me look into it for you.’ He had seen the uncertainty in her face, and said quickly, ‘It’ll take a few days, but you can stay here. There’s an attic – it isn’t very nice, but it’s dry and there’s a couch up there. You can just rest and get your strength back.’
Staying. Working without looking over her shoulder. Getting far away from here and from Angel. Having papers and a passport that were hers, that she could keep. She felt a flicker of hope. If Matthew said that he could do it…Maybe it wasn’t too late. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Sheffield, Thursday morning
Roz was at her desk for eight-thirty. She planned to spend the day working on her interview research. The adaptations to the software she’d been testing the previous day seemed to work now. She could move on to the next stage by herself, and then come back to Luke to check the software again.
Luke. She wondered if she should phone, but what could she say? She didn’t think that he had killed Gemma, but there had been that moment of doubt, and he might never forgive her for it. Maybe she could make him understand. Those pictures…they’d shown a side of Luke she had nev
er seen before, never suspected. But then she’d never believed – despite the warnings from the doctors – that Nathan could have been violent. She had held that belief as firmly as an article of faith and it had cost her concussion, a broken ankle, and a realization that she could no longer trust her own judgement. And her own belief in herself – hadn’t she wanted Nathan dead often enough in the immediate aftermath, because she couldn’t cope with his terror and his despair? It had seemed almost as if death would be better than what was happening to him. And her own panic and fear when he had finally turned on her…If she had been strong enough, she could have done anything in that moment.
Her hand moved towards the phone, then drew back. She needed to give Luke time.
She switched on her computer and waited for it to boot up. She looked out of the window. It was a fine winter’s day, the sky clear of cloud and the sun making the shadows sharp against the walls of her room.
Something on the monitor caught her eye. The screen was a deep blue, the deep blue that often meant trouble. The machine was telling her that the program she’d been running had not shut down properly and it was now going to run various tests to check for damage. Roz frowned as she watched it. She always shut the computer down properly. It was as automatic as breathing. She watched as the machine went through the processes, chided her for her carelessness, and then booted up. No damage, at any rate.
She dismissed it as one of those puzzles that seemed to be a feature of new technologies, and started work. Today, she found that she could concentrate. Her mind didn’t wander into unwanted places and she was able to remain focused on what she was doing. She was distracted from her attempt to sort a tricky bit of the text into useful categories by the sound of her door opening and closing, and Joanna’s voice. ‘Roz!’ Joanna, looking meeting-elegant was closing the door behind her. She looked pleased. ‘Good news! I heard it from the vice-chancellor yesterday. The LLG is going to stay as an independent group, and we’re keeping all our grants. And –’ her eyes sparkled – ‘I’m going to get funding for another appointment, and a couple of post-graduate students. We need a researcher on the software-development side.’
Roz tried to be pleased. She was pleased. It was good news for her as well as for Joanna. ‘That’s great.’ Joanna seemed disappointed by her reaction, so she forced a smile and said again, ‘That’s great, really.’
Joanna looked at her for a moment. ‘I haven’t forgotten about Gemma, Roz. But I have to keep this thing going. If we let it go now, it will all go. It isn’t just us, you know.’
Joanna was right. There was outstanding work, there were research contracts to fulfil – none of these had changed. ‘We can’t get very far without Luke,’ she said.
‘We can fund a research post now,’ Joanna said. ‘I’ve got someone in mind. And I had a brief word with Luke this morning.’
‘How was he?’
Joanna clearly heard something in her voice, because she shot a sharp look at Roz.
‘Singularly uncommunicative,’ she said flatly. Roz looked back at her screen, not wanting Joanna to see her smile. She could imagine exactly how Luke had been with Joanna. At least he’d talked to her. ‘But anyway, he plans to resign.’
‘What?’ Luke’s unforgiving face flashed into her mind. That was typical of the angry impulse he was prone to. ‘When?’
‘I think it’s the best thing.’ Joanna evaded the subject. ‘You left your door unlocked yesterday, Roz. I found it open when I came back to collect some files.’
‘I didn’t…’ Roz began, then realized that she couldn’t remember. Apparently she hadn’t shut her computer down properly either. She sighed. ‘I seem to have been all over the place recently. Sorry.’ She needed to contact Luke urgently, stop him from throwing his job away on an impulse.
Joanna looked at her. ‘I think we all have,’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing else you can do, Roz. We’ll just have to get on with it.’
‘That’s what I’ve been doing,’ Roz said. ‘And I did try and do some tracking down on Gemma’s report.’
‘That.’ Joanna sighed. ‘Gemma’s report was complete, Roz. I had the woman from Hull on the phone about it. I checked it through and I can’t see anything that should be there that isn’t. If Gemma had speculations about it, then she was going beyond her brief, which was: Where does this woman come from? Gemma gave them a more precise location than they will have expected.’ She looked at Roz to see if her message was getting through. ‘You have to think commercially with these things. We were asked to do one thing, and we charged accordingly. There’s always more you can find from a recording. You know that. You could go on analysing for years. But it isn’t cost-effective. Gemma was still learning that. You, however, should know by now. Especially if we’re starting up privately.’
‘You’re right.’ Roz ran her fingers through her hair. It was important to separate the research and the commercial worlds. With research, you pursued the unexpected alleyways that opened up – there might be answers to questions you hadn’t even thought of asking. With commercial work, you did what was requested. You did it well, but that was all you did. ‘I suppose it’s one of those things you feel you ought to do. Like sending flowers to a funeral.’
Joanna’s efficient mask was replaced by a more human regret. ‘I know. And it means nothing, really. When you think about what happened…A few flowers, a report. Empty gestures.’
Roz rarely saw Joanna in reflective mood. ‘What did happen? No one’s told me.’ The newspaper accounts had been brief.
‘I know someone who knows someone,’ Joanna said, ‘but he didn’t give me all the details. I didn’t want them. Whoever it was beat her up and then strangled her.’ Roz closed her eyes. She hadn’t imagined a sustained attack. She’d imagined an impulsive blow. ‘And then he posed her obscenely in a hotel bathroom. The police had to use dental records to identify her, I understand.’ For a moment, the lines of tension showed on Joanna’s face. ‘The police are following up the queries on Gemma’s report,’ she added. ‘We can’t do it, for obvious reasons. They’ve sent the tape through to Bill Greenhough at York.’ There was silence for a minute, and then Joanna’s voice changed abruptly. ‘There’s work to be done. I’ve got the wording for the advertisements. I’d like you to have a look at them before I send them through.’
Roz nodded, keeping her eyes on the screen until Joanna had gone. Her hands were shaking. Gemma! No wonder Luke had been so angry. No wonder he didn’t want to work with her any more. He must have thought that she believed…She kept seeing things in her mind that she didn’t want to see. Joanna’s fastidious phrase, ‘posed obscenely’, made her think of the pictures that had formed on her monitor, photographs that had been sent out into the world on the web for everyone to look at…But Luke wouldn’t have – couldn’t have done that.
She picked up her phone and dialled his number. She got the answering machine again. She hesitated, then said, ‘Luke? It’s Roz. Are you there?’ Silence. Just the hiss of the tape. ‘Listen, I just found out about – what happened to Gemma. I didn’t know. When we talked, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’ She waited again to see if he would pick up the phone, but nothing happened. According to Joanna, he’d been there not so long ago. He must have gone out. She put the phone down.
She felt restless and uncomfortable now. The need to sort things out with Luke was like an itch in her mind. The work that had been going so well had suddenly become a series of meaningless symbols on her screen. She saved it and shut the program down. Maybe she should go and get coffee, have a change of scene.
She went to the Students’ Union in the end, to the coffee bar where they sold decent espresso and cappuccino. She isolated herself at one of the bar stools, and made a barrier of her newspaper as she stirred sugar into her cup. The news was depressing. The hospitals were in crisis because of the ‘flu epidemic, the opposition parties were delighted. Roz thought about the anarchist slogan – Don’t vote: the government always gets i
n. She turned to the science supplement. She was in the middle of an article about disappearing languages, when someone said, ‘I don’t usually see you here.’
Roz looked up. Sean Lewis was smiling down at her, a cup of coffee in his hand. Roz didn’t feel like company, particularly not from the person who might be taking over Luke’s work, but she couldn’t think of a good reason not to be sociable. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, with tepid welcome.
He didn’t need any more encouragement. He pulled up a stool and sat down next to her. ‘What are you reading?’
‘A newspaper,’ Roz said repressively, and then, deciding that she was being a bit too Luke-like, added, ‘It’s an article about dying languages.’ She was glad it was such a minority topic – she didn’t want to get into a long conversation with him. But to her surprise, he seemed interested.
‘That was one of Gemma’s things, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Sorry. You won’t want to talk about it.’
‘That’s OK.’ Roz realized she had now more or less committed herself to a conversation. ‘Yes. She did her research into one of the Russian languages.’
‘She was telling me about her time in Russia,’ he said. He looked into the distance, his cup held between his hands. ‘She told me quite a bit about your section, the work you do,’ he said. He seemed to be thinking something over. ‘Can I talk to you?’ he said. Roz shrugged, to indicate that that was what he was already doing. ‘Joanna Grey said that there would be a research post coming up in your section – but I dunno…I kind of liked the things Gemma was doing…And I need a change of direction,’ he said. ‘I mean, MIT was something else…’
‘But tough?’ Roz said.
‘As if! I can do this, that’s the thing. It was too easy.’
Bright, but unfocused, Roz diagnosed. Extremely bright, if he’d found his PhD as easy as he said. She’d seen this problem before in particularly talented students who hadn’t developed any particular interests and were often torn between the lucrative but restricting market and the more fulfilling but impoverished field of academia. She was thinking about something else he had said. Gemma had talked to him about her work. Maybe they’d talked about the tape, about the queries Gemma was trying to sort out via Holbrook’s archive. ‘What did Gemma tell you?’ she said. ‘About her work?’