When We Were Friends

by Tina Seskis

  ‘I don’t want someone nice. I want Auntie Siobhan,’ said Nell.

  ‘I want Daddy,’ said Conor, and he pulled the cat to him and hugged the hell out of it (which Coco rather stoically put up with, she was used to it), and then he burst into noisy tears.

  58

  Belgravia, Central London

  As soon as Terry arrived at the police station, he’d been unceremoniously arrested and bundled off to a cell, as if he were nothing more than a common criminal. They’d said they weren’t ready to interview him yet, despite him arriving on time for his appointment, and it seemed they were entitled to lock him up in the meantime, even though he hadn’t actually been charged with anything – which was a ruddy disgrace in Terry’s opinion.

  The cell was small and dirty and stank of urine. Terry felt trapped, desperate, as he paced up and down, unwilling to sit down on the rank-looking bunk. As he waited for what seemed like hours, he felt more and more hemmed in, as if the room were shrinking. He found that he couldn’t stop thinking of poor Frank and Dean, caged not as a one-off travesty, because they were falsely under suspicion of something (no, not just of something, of murder), but instead were interned for ever – and he hated the thought and debated how he could set them free. Would they be able to even survive in the wild? he wondered. Would they know how to find food? Was there an organisation that could help him do it, the RSPCA perhaps? He knew he was being ridiculous, he had far more serious things to worry about than his pet rats’ wellbeing, but the more he paced, the more concerned he became, about all of his animals now, fretting about whether Maria would feed them if he was kept in overnight, God forbid – not because she was cruel or anything, just whether she’d think to, know how to, know who got which food and how much, even if she did remember. He needed to ring her.

  Terry hauled his brain back to his own predicament. He tried to work out what was going on, why he was being held here, what might happen next. He needed to be prepared, know what to say. He needed to think.

  Terry wound his mind around the facts, as though he were there again, as if the evening was happening right now. He is in Hyde Park, near The Serpentine. He has his client’s wife under surveillance. He hears an argument. He hears a splash. Her so-called friends leave, despite hearing it too. He dials 999. The police find nothing, are annoyed with him for wasting their time. Three days later, a body is found, by a small boy in a boat apparently. They think it may be murder. It appears that he, Terry, is the prime suspect, even though he’s the one who called the police in the first place. He’s locked in a cell at this very moment, waiting for them to interview him.

  Terry fast-forwards, imagines what he will say. He tries to calm down, think clearly, assess his options. He doesn’t know what to do. He goes round in circles, getting tangled in the details of the lies he could tell. Sweat breaks out across his smooth top lip, and his tongue feels dead. He worries about everything and nothing: his pets, what Maria will think, what his client will say, what really happened that night.

  And then finally, eventually, it comes to him.

  Yes, that’s it.

  He’ll tell the truth at last. He has no other option. He’ll confess that he was being paid to trail a woman whose husband was convinced she was having an affair; that that was why he was there, not for a nice evening stroll after all. He’ll confess that his target was Juliette Forsyth, a woman possibly familiar to the more dedicated readers of Hello! magazine. He’ll admit that his client was the illustrious Stephen Forsyth, and he might even confess the truth of their relationship, as it would probably come out in the end.

  What would the police do? Would they believe him? What the heck was going to happen? Terry put his head in his hands, to stop it from moving involuntarily from side to side as if in denial, to stop his hands from trembling like an addict’s. He wished he had a paintbrush, a figure, some tiny intricate detail to tackle … an insignia perhaps. That always helped steady his hands, steady his nerves. He looked down at his shoes, his leather-soled smart shoes – he’d dressed up for the interview, almost looked quite handsome in fact, although he didn’t know why he’d bothered. So I don’t look like a creep, a murderer, he acknowledged now. He wasn’t sure if he’d been successful. He didn’t know if they’d accept his story, telling the truth didn’t always pay, not when people like Stephen Forsyth were involved.

  Terry sank down on the filthy bed at last and put his head in his hands. He stifled a sob. All he’d done was try to do the right thing, save someone’s life, and now here he was, locked up like one of his poor pet rats, his own life about to be ruined.

  59

  Somerset House

  Renée was hovering outside the door, debating whether she should go in. But something told her to give Juliette this time alone – the old man with the half-moon glasses had said on his way out that this was often a very big moment for adoptees, the first concrete step on their journey back to their beginnings. It was terribly frustrating though. Renée felt almost desperate to find out, although she knew it wasn’t her business, not really.

  Renée picked up a leaflet entitled ‘How to register a death’ and sat in one of the booths reading it mindlessly, fiddling with a long black strand of her hair, twirling it round and round her forefinger like she was a little girl still. She was glad for Juliette, that she’d started this at last, sure that Juliette would feel so much better about herself if she knew the truth of where she came from. She almost shivered with excitement – once Juliette had her mother’s name she’d be able to go about trying to trace her. Renée hoped it was a distinctive one, so it would be easier for them – no, for Juliette, she reminded herself. Maybe Juliette could even go and visit her one day; Renée would be more than happy to keep her company, offer moral support if she wanted it. Renée’s finger was hurting now, and when she looked down she realised she’d twisted her hair so tightly she’d cut off the blood supply to it.

  When Juliette eventually came out of the anteroom her beautiful face was as white as her best friend’s finger. Renée smiled encouragingly and went to speak, but Juliette just shook her head and beckoned her to come, so Renée got up and followed her out, untangling her hair as she walked. They made their way into the open courtyard and the sky was blue and clear, and the building was luxuriating in its own beauty like a gorgeous girl in the bath, but neither of them appreciated it as they hurried one after the other. Once they were out in the shivery air of the Strand and it was clear that Juliette still wasn’t going to slow down, or say anything, Renée ran to catch up.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, almost panting.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Renée. She didn’t know what to say. ‘Was it upsetting?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Juliette, and there was steel in her voice that Renée had never heard before. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Renée, struggling to keep up as they passed the Savoy, where a group of wealthy-looking people swarmed out into the road, expecting the traffic to slow down for them.

  Juliette didn’t know why she was so upset, not really. Nothing had actually changed, had it? She struggled for an answer that would satisfy her friend.

  ‘Because what is the point in chasing after someone who didn’t want me in the first place? There is no point. It’s pointless.’

  ‘But you don’t know that,’ said Renée, breathless still, and not just from having to walk fast. ‘You don’t know that she didn’t want you. Maybe she had to give you away.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Juliette said, and her voice was sad suddenly. ‘And whichever way you look at it, she didn’t want me enough. I should just be grateful for having such lovely adoptive parents, and leave it at that.’ She thought then of Giles and Cynthia, of what good people they were, how hard they’d tried, how they’d sent her to a lovely school, bought her a pony, of how much they’d always loved her, as i
f she were their own. And then she remembered how she’d always felt slightly inferior to her younger brother Barney, because he wore laughter around his eyes and never seemed to care where he came from. She wished she could have been more like him. She sighed. Life had been good regardless, hadn’t it? She’d been happy with her lot; why was she stirring everything up now? (Because Renée forced m—, and before she’d even finished the thought she buried it, snapped it away somewhere dark and inaccessible in her brain.)

  Renée said nothing more as they made their way down into the Tube at Charing Cross, and the atmosphere between the girls was tense, unfamiliar. They’d become so uncannily close, as if they’d known each other forever, but right now they were each in their own worlds. Juliette had set her mind to neutral, and was trying not to think at all. Renée was thinking of her own mother, across the Channel in a tiny apartment in Paris with her handsome French boyfriend. She knew how it felt not to be wanted too, she thought crossly. But maybe in Juliette’s case there would be a happy ending; they just had to find it. They just had to find her.

  60

  Canary Wharf, East London

  Stephen sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled up determinedly, running his afternoon editorial meeting in the manner of a despot ruling a tin-pot country somewhere far away. His office was a complete mess – papers everywhere, old editions of the newspaper dumped on the floor like in a hoarder’s home – but his secretary and the cleaners never dared touch anything, it could get them the sack.

  ‘OK, what have you got?’ Stephen said. His deputy editor ran through the list of stories, an uninspiring lot including an A-list couple visiting Harrods with their kids and having a row in the food hall, a man being trapped for fifteen hours after his ceiling collapsed under the weight of his porn collection, the threat of another economic meltdown in Europe, a primary-school teacher who’d doctored her class’s SATs results, a ten-vehicle pile-up on the M4 in which a baby had been killed, yet another rumble in the phone-hacking scandal.

  ‘None of this is really front-page news,’ said Stephen, ignoring the last story. ‘Isn’t there anything better?’

  ‘Uh, sorry, Stephen, that’s all we’ve got,’ said Barry Smiley, his long-time assistant. ‘What about going with the baby story, we’ve got a picture – of him before obviously,’ he added hastily, knowing even Stephen wouldn’t put a picture of a mangled baby on the front cover of a national newspaper.

  ‘I don’t know, pile-ups aren’t that interesting these days unless there’s at least twenty cars involved,’ Stephen said. ‘I think if that’s all you’ve got maybe we should have a bit of fun with the porn-mag story, it is silly season after all.’

  Stephen’s favourite reporter, Maddie, poked her head round the office door. Barry scowled at her; she was a right brown-noser, always trying to muscle in on everything. He was convinced she was after his job, and it kept him awake at night.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, Stephen,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Hold the front page – I’ve always wanted to say that! – but a body has just been fished out of The Serpentine.’

  ‘What, in Hyde Park?’ asked Stephen, a little prick of adrenaline shooting through his neck.

  ‘Yes, The Serpentine river! It’s a woman, she’s not been formally identified yet, but they think they’ve got the bloke too. Apparently he only went and dialled 999.’

  ‘Well done, Maddie! Thank God someone is doing some work around here.’ He looked witheringly at Barry, and Barry went puce with anger above his pink-striped shirt (which as it happened was beautifully ironed and cufflinked, unlike his boss’s) at being upstaged like this. It was a bloody disgrace how Stephen humiliated him in front of this little upstart, after all he’d done for him over the years. He needed a drink.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll leave you to it then,’ Barry said huffily. He stood up, but they didn’t seem to have heard him. He walked slowly across the room, en route to his secret drawer, and then hesitated at the door. He tried to think of a punchline.

  ‘And, in the interests of factual accuracy,’ he said, always his forte, ‘I think you’ll find that The Serpentine is a lake, not a river,’ but Stephen was still too wrapped up with Maddie to have heard him.

  61

  Camden

  It became clear to Renée, once they were back at her aunt’s house, that Juliette really wasn’t going to talk about anything she’d discovered, or otherwise, at Somerset House – not now or, it seemed, later. It was strange how she’d clammed up like that – what could she possibly have found out that was so traumatic? A thought came to Renée then – what if her mother actually had turned out to be famous, joking aside? Or what if Juliette had known her mother; maybe she’d found out it was her neighbour or grandmother or something. Perhaps she’d discovered who her father was too, it wasn’t always the case that it was ‘father unknown’, and there was something shocking about him. Renée was almost desperate to know.

  ‘How was your day today, girls?’ asked Linda as she stood at the stove stirring something comforting-smelling, a blue-striped butcher’s apron tied neatly over her regulation jeans and white T-shirt. The aroma of paprika mooched through the air.

  ‘It was fine,’ said Renée.

  ‘What did you get up to?’

  ‘Oh, you know, a bit of shopping around Covent Garden, not much really.’

  ‘I think you’re forgetting something,’ said Juliette then, and she sounded uncharacteristically harsh, pent-up. ‘We went to Somerset House, didn’t we, Renée?’ She turned to Linda, whose face was flushed, from cooking presumably. ‘I don’t know if you know, Linda, but I’m adopted. Renée, for some reason, is obsessed with where I came from, so she forced me to go to Somerset House and –’

  ‘I didn’t force you,’ Renée cut in, horrified. ‘I thought you were happy to go.’

  ‘Well, you were wrong,’ said Juliette, but her anger had faded now. She knew she was being unfair – she’d only realised that she didn’t want to do it once she’d done it, after all.

  Renée looked close to tears, and Linda reacted quickly. ‘Right, who’d like a nice cup of tea?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not obsessed with where you came from,’ said Renée, ignoring her aunt. ‘I was just trying to help – I thought you said you’d feel better once you’d found out.’

  Juliette knew Renée was right, she had consented, in fact had even been keen just a few hours earlier, but it seemed when it came down to it she wasn’t ready to go there, not yet. It was strange how before all this adoption business Renée had seemed so in tune with her, had appeared to understand her more than anyone else in the world. But thinking about it, who else would get her? She had no blood relatives after all; there were no genetic connections to help anyone read her deepest feelings. She felt embarrassed now at her outburst, especially in front of Renée’s undeserving aunt.

  ‘Don’t worry, Renée, I’m sorry I got so emotional, I don’t mean to take it out on you. I just don’t think I’m ready to do this, after all.’ She turned to Linda. ‘I’m so sorry, Linda, I’m not usually such a nightmare, I promise.’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine,’ said Linda. ‘You don’t have to apologise to me. Look, it’s none of my business, but it’s a big deal what you’ve done. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’

  ‘Sorry, Renée,’ said Juliette again, as Renée just sat there, hiding under her orange fringe.

  ‘That’s OK,’ muttered Renée, and the ever-obliging Linda served them tea and home-made fruit cake, and as snowflakes started to fall gently on the street outside and disappear into tiny shiny pools upon reaching the pavement, the crisis passed, for now.

  62

  Canary Wharf

  Stephen was feeling even more pleased with himself than usual. OK, ‘The body in the lake’ was not the most original of headlines, but it was a cracking story, and he was hoping to get enough extra material for at least a double-page spread inside – plus he’d almost certainly be able to eke it out for the rest of the week
too. He’d got Maddie straight onto the bloke they’d picked up; she was off now seeing what she could dig up on him.

  Maybe today was going to turn out well after all. It had certainly started badly. He and Juliette seemed to be getting on more appallingly than ever, she was so bloody uptight these days, always shouting at the kids, presiding over a pigsty of a house. How on earth could they have so much domestic help and the place still look like that? He felt sorry for the children sometimes, especially Noah, and he was worried about his middle child, he seemed to have become so withdrawn lately. Stephen didn’t know what had happened to Juliette, she certainly hadn’t turned out to be much of a wife and mother, despite her early promise. He’d been so taken in by her beauty, her utter middle-classness, when they’d met at Bristol, and he’d been immediately smitten, had worshipped her like a precious painting, but she’d changed so much over the years, had become so bitter, and it was like she hated him as much as she did her mother now. Even worse, he was convinced she was having an affair these days, and the thought made him want to retch; he hated that she still had such a hold on him. He was annoyed that Terry still hadn’t got back to him with an update from her supposed picnic the other night; he bet he’d lost her, the useless twat.

  His phone rang, and it was her. She didn’t usually ring him at work. His heart leaped, despite himself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, which he knew didn’t help marital relations, but hostility was their modus operandi these days.

  ‘I’m at the police station,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Why?’ he said. Christ, was she all right? Had something happened to the kids?

  ‘Siobhan’s dead.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘She drowned, in The Serpentine.’

  Stephen felt his breath fall down, away from his chest, as though gravity had just got stronger. He felt a tightness in his throat.