by Alex Preston
It was the first college ball they had played, and they had all been nervous, but so many of their friends were in the audience, and the band looked so young and happy that the reception was rapturous. People had been drinking for a few hours and the band played songs that everyone loved, songs that people knew how to dance to. Marcus remembered looking down and seeing couples with their arms around each other as he and Abby took turns singing the verses of a song that had been a hit several years earlier. People were kissing and laughing and getting drunk in the day’s last light. The band had come off stage to a riot of applause and delighted revellers had bought them drinks all evening.
At the end of the night, Marcus had to carry Abby back to their college draped over his shoulder. He tucked her up in her bed and then Lee and Mouse followed him over to his room. He switched on the desk light and opened a bottle of wine. Lee lolled in an armchair, a cigarette hanging from her lips. Marcus called Daffy and some other friends who had been out clubbing in town. They turned up carrying bottles of beer and vodka and someone started rolling joints on Marcus’s desk. Mouse put on a CD and people began to dance in the corners of the room. Marcus crossed the quadrangle to check on Abby. She had kicked the duvet onto the floor and was snoring loudly. He draped the cover back over her and placed a kiss on her clammy forehead. She moaned in her sleep and rolled over.
When he went back into his room, more people had turned up. He didn’t recognise some of them, but Daffy threw an arm around his shoulder and yelled: ‘It’s OK. They’re with me’ in his ear. Mouse was involved in a drinking game that Marcus could already see he was losing. His shirt was wet with beer and he kept tilting backwards on his heels, very nearly toppling over. Lee was still sitting in the armchair, coolly surveying the party. Marcus crouched in front of her and she reached over and tousled his hair. He smiled up at her.
‘You were amazing tonight.’ Marcus took one of her cigarettes and lit it. Her skirt was hitched up around her thighs and he placed his hands on her thin legs. Lee giggled.
‘I really enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘It’s so fun to be up there with you guys.’ She leaned towards him and spoke in a whisper. ‘Listen, I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the fridge outside my room. If no one’s nicked it, do you want to go and drink some?’
They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and Lee took the bottle from the fridge. They went into her room and sat down on the bed. It was always a mess in there: books everywhere, face-down or piled in corners awaiting her attention. Clothes were strewn across the floor, dropped where she took them off. Lee created extraordinarily complicated essay plans in many different shades of ink. When she was done with them she used them to wallpaper one side of the room. Marcus leaned back against a plan that seemed to be dealing with Ancrene Wisse and the contemplative life. Lee opened the champagne and clamped her mouth over the neck of the bottle to stop it fizzing over.
Marcus couldn’t remember what they had talked about as they drank. He did remember Lee crossing to the window and looking out. The view from her room was extraordinary: across the roofs of the town to the first traces of dawn in the east. Marcus came up behind her and put his arms around her. She swigged from the champagne and then held the bottle up. Marcus put his lips over it and she tilted the bottle as he gulped. She turned to face him. A gentle breeze came through the window smelling of mown grass. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She sniggered. He leaned forward again, running his hands down her sides. He kissed her other cheek and then tried to find her lips. She turned her head away.
‘This is naughty.’
Marcus picked up the bottle and went back to the bed. Lee looked over at him. Very slowly, she crossed her room and sat down next to him. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him on the lips. Marcus stood up and took her in his arms and this time she pressed her pelvis against his and forced her tongue into his mouth. Marcus pulled her skirt up so that it sat around her waist and then slipped his fingers into her pants. He eased his middle finger into her. Someone knocked on the door.
‘Lee? Marcus? Are you guys in there? Tell me you aren’t drinking the champagne I gave you, Lee? That was for us to share.’
Abby walked into the room as Marcus and Lee sprang apart. Lee struggled to pull her skirt back down around her thighs. Abby looked blearily at them.
‘Oh, you are here. And you are drinking the bloody champagne. I woke up with a stinking headache and I really fancied some proper booze. Is there any left?’
Lee handed it to her.
‘I’m still really very pissed,’ Abby said, slumping down on the bed. ‘But this is delicious.’
As soon as possible Marcus had guided the girls downstairs to the party.
He was woken from his memories by his phone. He thought it might be Abby and so he rushed to find the bleating machine. It was in a pocket somewhere and he almost missed it.
‘Hello Marcus?’ It was a man’s voice. ‘Detective Inspector Farley here. Listen, I know it’s a bit late, but do you think I might drop by? I go past you on my way home and I just wanted a quick chat.’
‘Of course.’
The policeman arrived twenty minutes later. Marcus heard him pull up outside and buzzed him in. Farley accepted the offer of a drink and they sat on the sofa sipping a beer together.
‘I’m sorry for being so late. It’s almost ten o’clock, isn’t it? You know when the day just seems to get away from you?’
Marcus took a swig of his beer.
‘We have made no progress with Lee. She’s not on any of the cameras at Banbury Station. We have her driving into town at about ten to five in the morning – one of the cameras that they use for traffic control picked her up – but nothing after that. It seems she disappeared somewhere in Banbury.’
‘I suppose you’ve looked into whether there might be anyone she knows there, someone who might be putting her up while she gets her head together?’
‘It was one of the things I was going to ask you. You’ve heard about the diaries, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re bleak. The girl certainly had issues. But I’m not sure they are the work of someone who was actually going to kill herself. A bit too poised, too much thought about the aesthetics of the whole thing, if you know what I mean.’
Marcus nodded.
‘The other thing that gives me pause is that it’s very rare for a suicide to go undiscovered. A murder, yes. Easy enough to place a body somewhere it won’t be seen for a while if you have a spade or a cellar. But for someone to kill themselves and for the body not to turn up, that’s rare.’
‘So you’re hopeful?’
‘I didn’t say that. People go missing the whole time. You couldn’t imagine the number of cases sitting on the books of police forces around the country where people just vanish, thin air so to speak. But girls like Lee don’t just vanish. And I’m afraid I’m not going to be allowed to let her become another statistic. There’s something about it in one of the tabloids this weekend. You know how the press are. She’s young, she’s posh, she’s pretty, she’s a member of the Course. They’ll be all over it. My superiors will be on at me day and night until I get this one solved.’
‘Listen,’ said Marcus, ‘I know we didn’t have a great start the other night, but I really want to help you. Anything I can do, I will. It’s . . . it’s really strange, but people have started to speak about her as if she’s dead. It’s this no man’s land where everyone pretends to be optimistic, says “When Lee gets back” and “Let’s save that for Lee”, but then in the next sentence she’s in the past tense. I’m just not ready to bury her yet.’
Marcus looked up at the policeman.
‘I don’t think she killed herself,’ he said.
‘Neither do I,’ replied Farley.
They finished their beers in silence and then Marcus walked the policeman down to his car. Farley turned to him with a thin smile.
‘You’ll let me know if you think of anything
? Can I rely on you to pass things on to me?’
‘Of course.’
Marcus went back inside and carefully placed the photographs back in their boxes, stacked the boxes in the spare room, and went to bed.
Three
On Saturday afternoon Mouse turned up at the flat. He looked hungover and sleep-deprived, and his velvet jacket bore several new cigarette burns. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot.
‘The bloody shower’s broken,’ he said as he walked in the door. ‘I was over for dinner with David last night and the twins and Neil were there and we decided to go for drinks afterwards. We went to a bar on Walton Street where Neil had some corporate deal and there were all these very beautiful Russian ladies, and my glass kept getting refilled and I ended up ridiculously drunk. I seem to remember walking along the Embankment with the twins, but after that, nothing. I’ve no idea how I got home. Christ, my head.’
Marcus ran him a bath and placed some painkillers and a glass of water by the sink. He sat watching TV while Mouse bathed, smiling as he heard his friend singing to himself and splashing about. When he was done, Mouse came into the room wearing Marcus’s dressing gown. He sat down next to Marcus on the sofa.
‘What’s the plan for tonight? I thought maybe a quiet one? Film and a curry?’
‘Actually, I have plans. I’m going over to east London to see Daffy.’
‘Daffy? Really? How brilliant. Can I come?’
‘Of course.’
They dressed together in his bedroom, and it reminded Marcus of the excitement he used to feel as they got ready for a night out at university: music on the stereo, sharpening drinks and then a spray of aftershave and out into the night with its endless potential. They strolled down to the Tube together and then made the long trip across town on the Central Line.
Marcus liked the way each Tube line had its own identity. This identity was fashioned partly from the upholstery of the trains and the feel of the stations, partly from the districts of London which the line linked and the passengers who travelled upon it. The Central Line was bohemian and trendy, linking Notting Hill to Bethnal Green via Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road. The District Line was more sedate, old-world, running from the City through St James’s Park to Sloane Square. He liked the hurried dependability of the Victoria Line and the deep, dusty donnishness of the Northern Line, while the shimmering futurism of the Jubilee Line and the down-at-heel Bakerloo left him cold.
They got off the train at Liverpool Street and walked along Bishopsgate towards Shoreditch. Marcus had arranged to meet Daffy in a pub behind Hoxton Square. They strolled through crowds of young people wrapped up against the cold, the haircuts and jewellery becoming more inventive as they moved up into Shoreditch. Daffy was sitting facing the door when they came in, and he raised his arm and waved, grinning.
‘I didn’t know you were coming, Mouse. Well, this is brilliant. Come on now, sit down. What are you having?’
Daffy had a thin moustache and wore a denim shirt and skinny jeans, high-top trainers on his feet. He seemed to know the bartender and bought a round of beers with whisky chasers.
‘I can’t tell you how good it is to see you guys, cheers.’ He took a long drink. ‘I run into various people from university now and again, but never anyone from our college. Thought the church had claimed you all. I was the only pagan left.’ He chuckled and raised his glass again. ‘Cheers, anyway.’ He faced them, grinning.
‘It’s good to see you too. Mouse and I were talking on the way over about how sorry we are that we lost touch with you. I mean, I think you know all about the Course.’
‘I do indeed. You tried to persuade me to join last time I saw you. Not my bag at all, you know what I mean? I almost joined just to see you guys, though.’
‘It’s hard to keep in touch with people. The Course just takes up so much of our time. But with you, Daffy . . . I mean, I think there are some friends where it really doesn’t matter how long you don’t see them for. When you’ve been through so much together, you can always just pick up where you left off. So tell us what you’re up to now.’
Daffy put his beer down on the table.
‘I’m in advertising. I had a couple of nothing jobs when I first left uni, but I’ve been at this place for over a year now. I work on the creative side. And I live over this way, just down beside Columbia Road. Share the flat with two blokes I met clubbing a few years back. I suppose I’m having a pretty good time.’
‘Any girlfriends?’
‘Oh, too many, too many. But no. There have been a few who stuck around for a while, but no one special. I always get a girl in January or something and then dump them in the summer. I go a bit mad in the sun, see? Basically, life is just this thing I get through either side of Glastonbury, you know what I mean?’
‘I’ve always wanted to go,’ said Mouse.
‘Oh, it’s fucking awesome, man. Come with us next year. A right proper eye-opener, I promise you. That’s a real religion for you.’
They ordered burgers from the bar and watched the pub fill up around them, reminiscing all the time about their university days.
‘And how’s Lee? I haven’t seen her since your wedding, Marcus. She was so pissed then, man.’
Marcus looked at Mouse and saw his friend shake his head very slightly.
‘She’s not really around any more,’ said Marcus, looking down at the drinks on the table, carefully removing the pickle from the top of his burger.
‘Ah, shame. She was fit. Still, it happens, doesn’t it? People drift in and out. Sure you’ll pick up where you left off when she’s back.’
Marcus looked up and saw that Mouse was staring at him.
‘Does anyone want another beer?’ Mouse said, and rose to walk to the bar.
A sofa became free in a corner of the pub and they moved there. They talked for a while longer and then Daffy stood up, rubbing his hands.
‘Right boys, I’m going to a gallery opening. Do you want to come along? It’s Hugo Carrington, you know, the guy from uni.’
Marcus had come across Carrington a few times at university. He was an angular aristocratic type whose father was equerry to the Queen. Carrington had studied art, but left halfway through his second year. He had launched his career to some public acclaim with a show in Mayfair soon after.
‘Sure,’ said Marcus. ‘Yeah, I remember Carrington.’
They walked down through Hoxton Square, which was full of happy chatter and the thud of bass from different bars and clubs. The gallery was on Kingsland Road and already a long queue snaked down the pavement outside. Some cupped their hands to the blacked-out window, trying to make out what Carrington had created inside.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Daffy. ‘I’m guestlisted. I’ll make them add you two.’
They walked past the long line of fashionably attired young people and Daffy spoke for a moment with the woman at the door. They followed him inside.
The noise of a hundred shouted conversations greeted them as they walked through black felt curtains and into the gallery. It was very hot and Marcus could see scores of men who looked just like Daffy, their sideburns razor-cut into daggers, bellowing into the faces of pretty girls. There was a bar along one side of the room and Daffy reached over and passed a warm bottle of beer to Marcus. Marcus thanked him and began to saunter around the room, gently pushing his way past trendy types who didn’t seem all that interested in the art. He walked through an archway and into a gloomy back room which was dominated by a huge spinning sculpture.
Wheels turned within wheels, something whirred manically inside a sphere, a great turbine chugged. The dial of an enormous clock at the centre glowed ominously in the half-light, its hands circling. A swinging blade flashed for an instant and then disappeared. The light was so dim that Marcus could barely make out how each part was connected, but he was enchanted, and turned to look for Mouse. He saw his friend speaking to Daffy on the other side of the main gallery and gestured to him. Mouse crossed
the room and stood next to Marcus in the dark. They sipped their beers and stared at the rotating sculpture.
‘It’s strange to see Daffy again,’ said Mouse.
‘Do you think he has changed?’ asked Marcus.
‘I don’t know. Maybe his accent is a little less strong, but other than that . . . I think it might be that he hasn’t changed at all.’
They continued to look at the machine for a while longer and then went out to the bar for more drinks.
An hour passed and the gallery grew so full that it was hard to move. Mouse and Marcus had colonised a flight of stairs at the far end of the room where they sat looking down on the people below them. Daffy would rush past every so often, his eyes wild, a huge grin on his face.
‘All right you two? Fucking crazy, eh? Cheers!’
A DJ started playing pounding trance music and some of the younger people tried to dance, their elbows pressed against their sides, grimaces of bored hipness fixed on their faces. Marcus took an armful of beers from the bar and he and Mouse drank them until they were giddy and had to hold on to each other to keep from sliding down the stairs.
Finally, the music stopped and the lights went up. Mouse was asleep, his cheek resting against the banister. Marcus looked down from his lofty position at the crowd as they began to file out into the night. He saw Daffy talking to Carrington, his shoulders twitching as he spoke. The artist kept looking over Daffy’s shoulder and pushed past him to join a group that was about to leave. He took a girl’s arm and began to guide her through the door. The girl turned once to look back at the room and Marcus’s lungs emptied of air.
The girl had a black fedora pulled down over her head and had turned up the collar of her jacket against the cold, but Marcus was almost certain that it was Lee. He shook Mouse awake.
‘Mouse, look!’
He watched his friend’s eyes as he saw the girl.