Try Not to Breathe: A Novel

by Holly Seddon

  It wasn’t their wedding anniversary, her birthday or any other important date. Everything had been fine when she’d kissed him good night and gone to bed, but this morning Fiona wouldn’t even meet his gaze.

  “Do you have any plans today?” he asked, trying to sound light.

  “No.”

  “Are you doing anything at lunchtime? Meeting any friends?”

  “No.”

  “How do you fancy having a nice lunch somewhere, then? Maybe we could drive down to Rye?”

  “Why?”

  “No, Rye.” He’d smiled, trying to crack her mood, but she had just glared harder.

  “Okay, because you’re my wife and I love you and we don’t have much time left for long lunches on our own.”

  “Hmn.”

  “Okay, Fi, I give up. What’s wrong?”

  “Ha!” The snort-come-laugh sent a chill through him; ordinarily she was spilling words when she had a problem.

  “What is it? You’re worrying me now.”

  “I’m worrying you, am I? I’m worrying you? That’s rich, Jacob, that’s fucking rich.”

  “I have no idea what I’ve done, so why don’t you just tell me?”

  Fiona sat down heavily, sinking into the oatmeal armchair. Gesturing to her belly, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m nearly eight months pregnant, Jacob, pregnant with your child, and I have to pee a lot.”

  And with that, the tears came in gulping fat sobs.

  Jacob knelt by his wife and gently placed one hand on her shoulder, and one hand on the enormous bump.

  “There’s no need to be upset. I know your body’s changing and that must be weird for you, it’s weird for me too, but—”

  Fiona brushed his hand from her stomach, lifting a face black with yesterday’s mascara.

  “Jacob, you really are stupid sometimes. I’m thirty-five weeks pregnant and I have to pee all day and all bloody night.”

  She sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve as she staggered to her feet. He reeled back from kneeling, steadying himself with a hand.

  “I had to get up and pee in the early hours last night and you weren’t in our bed. I checked downstairs in case you’d fallen asleep on the sofa, but you weren’t there. I checked the whole fucking house, J, and then I checked your car and it was gone.”

  She drew a quick breath, hands on hips. “Where the fuck were you?”

  “I didn’t know you’d woken up.”

  “Where the fuck were you?”

  “I was just driving around.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying to you.”

  “You’re lying. You think you can just lie to me now and it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “That’s not true. I just drove around for a bit. I wanted to clear my head, I was feeling stressed about stuff, about work, about the baby, I just wanted to get out for a bit.”

  “At half-one in the morning?”

  “Yes, at half-one in the morning! I thought you were fast asleep, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “So where did you go, then?”

  “I just drove around.”

  “Where did you drive around?”

  “I don’t know really, just around town.”

  “So you stayed in Tunbridge Wells, you only drove around Tunbridge Wells?”

  “Yes, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Yes, totally then, I just drove around Tunbridge Wells.”

  “Did you stop anywhere?”

  “Did I stop anywhere?”

  “Stop repeating what I’m saying and answer the flaming question. Did you stop anywhere?”

  “No, I didn’t stop anywhere.”

  “You didn’t pick up any petrol, or maybe a snack, or maybe another fucking woman?”

  Fiona’s body sagged but her eyes were ablaze.

  “Oh for God’s sake, Fiona, I just drove around.”

  “I give you the benefit of the doubt so much, Jacob, but you’ve just rammed it in my face this time—”

  “Jesus Christ, this is so unnecessary! You don’t give me the benefit of the doubt, you interrogate me like you’re doing now. I’d never have gone for a drive if I’d realized the trouble it would cause, I just really needed to get out.”

  “Do you know what, Jacob? Fucking snap, that’s what. I just need to get out.”

  With a sputter of energy and still wearing her maternity pajamas and slipper boots, Fiona stormed out of the house, snatching her car keys off the hall table as she went. And with a door slam and a shriek of revs she was gone.

  Jacob had nowhere to go and nothing to do. He sat on the stairs and stared at the front door. Who was there that he could call, really? University friends he’d spent the three years of his degree avoiding? Marc from work? Barely above an acquaintance.

  Jacob thought of his younger brother, Tom, so far away. Who did he call? He’d been popular as a kid, there were usually one or two friends back to play from primary school. Tom usually had a little cluster around him during break times at the grammar. But Jacob didn’t see him for his last years of school and didn’t remember anyone coming to call. All he remembered was the dyed hair and the dark music and a permanently shut bedroom door.

  The last time Jacob had seen Tom was the wedding, where he’d been painfully quiet, blending into the background and hovering around their mother.

  Did that same shy man have a ferocious social life that kept him from thoughts of home? Was it really just about work? And his other brother, Simon, what did he do in his “down time”?

  With a threesome of boys, it was probably to their parents’ credit that no one was piggy in the middle—there were no serious fights. Simon, the spit of his father in so many ways, had also shared his interests and demeanor. They would pair off, playing tennis, running errands or sitting quietly, frowning slightly as they read or watched television. Tom would hover nearby, desperate to join in. Copying expressions he’d heard Simon say, or making up reasons to knock on his bedroom door. But most of the time, Tom and Jacob would be left to bob around together, jostling and playing. They were pals, both young for their years, making dens, wrestling and building LEGO constructions far longer than was credible.

  Until Amy came on the scene. Then Jacob would close his door quietly but resolutely if she was over to see him, leaving Tom to his Game Boy and the sound of LEGOs tipping onto the floor. And then afterward. What did Tom do after Amy’s attack, when Jacob retreated even more? When both of his older brothers had abandoned him. Was Tom taken under his father’s wing while Jacob lay alone on his bed, staring into space for those long months? It was a blur, and one he didn’t really want to explore.

  Taking his keys from the hall table, Jacob slammed the door on the silent house and opted instead for the loud music and growling engine of his car. With nowhere specific to go, he went where he increasingly headed in spare moments, to the snug red brick terraces of Axminster Road.

  Alex pushed the trolley along each Sainsbury’s aisle in turn, although her list was short. She lingered amongst the vegetables, picking between two organic cucumbers for over five minutes.

  Eventually, with a little food in the corners of the trolley and a fresh pack of DryNites pads, she wheeled her way down the wine aisle, trying to quell the acceleration. She hovered by the rosé. Should I? For a change? Then immediately reversed back to the same white section she’d plundered for the last few weeks.

  As Alex loaded the bags into the trunk of her car, arms aching, the sound of her phone’s ringtone burst out of her purse. This was rare enough to make her jump and she answered suspiciously.

  “Hi, Alex, it’s Andy Bellamy from The Times. Can we arrange a time for you to come in?”

  —

  Alex’s knees clattered together as she shivered on the narrow Wapping pavement, craning her neck to look up beyond the tall gray walls. She breathed deeply, the cold air wrapping itself around her lungs as Alex drank in the huge tower. It was stil
l the color of wet newspaper, rising up out of the East London mess.

  News International’s “Fortress” was a lot bigger than she remembered. Or perhaps she was smaller now. Unable to move, Alex rummaged in her bag for a tissue she didn’t really need, and tried to wipe away the memories of her last day here.

  A different time. A different person. No one will remember me.

  Couriers bustled in and out of the security office, incredibly fresh-faced men and women whooshed in and out of the turnstiles, jabbing their security passes, jaws locked with their own deadlines. Was I ever that young? Alex wondered. But it was rhetorical—she was younger.

  She remembered the initial call up so vividly. Scuttling out of the Mizz Magazine office and hiding from colleagues in the stairwell, hand shaking so vigorously she thought she’d drop her phone. “Calling from The Times…Would you come in for a chat? Maybe meet some of the team? Talk about opportunities?”

  The first visit to the Fortress. Deep breathing exercises on the ride over, a stiff slug from the handbag for Dutch courage, a strong mint, the arched eyebrow of the taxi driver in the smeared rearview mirror. Twenty-four and hungry.

  Waiting and waiting and waiting in the security office, visitor badge dangling, brand-new shoes tugging at newer blisters. Couriers buzzing in and out, the lazy laughter of bored desk staff. And then the phone ringing behind the desk, the clipped tone from the woman leaning over, “They want you on the red sofas. Do you know where they are?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  Accompanied at painful speed along the cobbles by a sighing security guard. Behind the velvet rope. The “inkies” rushing in and out of the dirty bits on the lower floor, where execs and columnists would never deign to go.

  The editor’s parking slot as close to the main doors as a white line could ever hope to be.

  Once inside, Alex had drunk in the smells of the newsroom, the leather of the executive lift and the Styrofoam coffee. She’d walked tall along corridors papered floor-to-ceiling with famous headlines. Holding her head as stiff and straight as her mother’s late night elocution lessons had taught her years before. “Just walk with the books on your head, Alexandra, it’s not that hard! My God, what have I done to deserve this?”

  The unstoppable gush of excitement, creativity, that hunger again. Spilling from Alex as the smiling faces nodded from the other side of the walnut table, as polished as a bowling alley. “Zeitgeist,” “generation,” “ahead of the curve”…all the right phrases. And—Alex recognized looking back—her then-beautiful face smiling openly, a face that would look just so above a byline.

  The handshake, the sealed deal, the sweats. The shits in the foyer bathrooms on the way out, barely making it. Glancing at an oil painting of Rupert Murdoch in the reception as she walked giddily by, smiling so hard her cheekbones hurt. The burbling water feature. So eighties, and ridiculous, and everything she’d ever wanted to see in the flesh.

  On the taxi ride home, Alex had called her mother in Spain. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

  “A columnist?” Her mother had sniffed. “It’s a shame they didn’t put you on the travel desk. At least then you might make the effort to come and see me.”

  And then Alex had phoned Matt.

  “Oh my fucking God, seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously!” she’d squealed, kicking her legs in the back of the taxi, shoes flying as she’d slid slowly from one side to the other as the driver shook his head in the mirror but not unkindly.

  That night they’d put buttery lobster on a credit card. Delicate flutes of Champagne, clinked with wild abandon, tears in their eyes. Matt had carried her home. She’d felt light as a feather. And he had made love to her so gently that she couldn’t bear it. She’d sunk her nails into his flesh and dug him into her so she could be sure she was feeling everything. And his gargled voice had proposed in her ear. She’d cried: “Yes, oh my God, of course, yes.”

  The next day, he’d woken her up with a strong coffee, kissed both her eyelids and said, “I meant it.”

  If she had known how it would end, would she have taken the job?

  Yes. God, she was hungry then.

  A different time. A different person. No one will remember me.

  —

  “Do you know where to go?”

  “Yes, it’s fine, I used to work here.” Alex smiled at the security guard and pushed out into the cold grounds. As she walked along the familiar cobbles, Andy Bellamy came out of one of the side doors, shirt flapping around his big belly.

  “Alex, thanks for coming in.”

  “No problem, it’s good to see the old place.”

  They met awkwardly. She went for one cheek kiss, he for two and they clashed mid-air.

  “I thought we could grab a coffee.”

  The coffee shop in a chilly corner of the newspaper complex had been a thinly disguised Starbucks franchise in Alex’s time. Now it appeared to be a thinly disguised Costa franchise.

  “No more Caramel Macchiatos?” Alex asked.

  “No, now it’s the same old shit with a different name,” Andy said. “Thank our friends at The Sun, they did an exposé on Starbucks wasting water and the whole thing kicked off. Anyway, take a seat.”

  Andy had worked on the City pages when Alex left. He hadn’t been in the meeting room that last time. But he’d looked over the rim of his newsroom monitor as she’d been escorted out, flanked by security. A hundred pairs of furtive eyes had looked over their monitors that day.

  “So do you miss it here?” he asked.

  “I miss the money,” Alex laughed.

  “Yeah…there’s not so much of that about now, eh?”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for every commission I get now, but damn. When I think about how much I got then, and how little I had to write in comparison…”

  “What was the name of the column you did again?”

  “Which one? There was the main column on Tuesday and then ‘Losing Mum,’ on Sunday.”

  “Ah yes, of course.”

  Alex could see a guy in the queue that she dimly recognized, and immediately worried why.

  “Shame that stopped.”

  “Well, my mum died, so it sort of reached a natural end.”

  “Oh God, I’m such a twat,” Andy said, aghast. They both laughed.

  “It’s fine. Ha, it’s really fine.”

  “Look, I wanted to talk to you about the Amy story you pitched and I thought it would be easier to have a face-to-face. It’s an interesting case but I have a few misgivings. Put it this way, we couldn’t make a story out of it yet.”

  “There’s definitely a lot more to be done.”

  “Make no mistake, it’s interesting. Very interesting. I remember it happening, the stepdad being nicked, the mum. It’s awful what happened to that family, but I’m still struggling to see how we could legitimately make a valuable article out of it now.”

  Alex swallowed hard. “Okay, I see what you’re saying. But what if new evidence was found about the person that attacked Amy? That would warrant a full feature, surely? Whoever did this is still out there. Someone capable of attacking a young girl and leaving her for dead. People don’t tend to do things like that once and then retire, they tend to get worse.”

  Alex looked around at all the caffeinated eyes peering out from behind giant cardboard cups of coffee. She lowered her voice.

  “I think the key to the story is, you know, where is this guy? And what are the police doing about catching him?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Right, no one knows where he is and the police aren’t doing anything. It’s just another cold case for them. It would only be opened up if something very similar happened.”

  Andy Bellamy folded his arms over his barrel tummy and cocked his head to the side.

  “I mean,” Alex carried on, quietly, “is that okay? Should someone else’s family be r
ipped apart before this is solved?”

  “Okay, yeah, you’ve made your point,” Andy said. “I’m not totally convinced, Alex, and to be frank your last few pieces haven’t really done it for me like they used to…

  “Here’s what I’ll do. You bring me something with a tangible exclusive, similar cases that hadn’t been put together before, police reopening the investigation, some suspect they overlooked, girl waking up and dancing the tango…something, and we’ve got an interesting double-page spread. Bring me something vintage Alex Dale and you’ve got yourself a full four-pager.”

  —

  Andy Bellamy’s words had gnawed away at her all night and she thought of them as soon as she woke up the next morning. Parallel cases, overlooked suspects, she’d not started on anything like this. Other than rifling through all the clippings, pissing off her ex-husband and bothering a wary stepdad, she’d not done very much at all.

  It was a battle of willpower over fatigue to pull her running things on, but Alex knew it was the best method for clearing her head.

  As her trainers thumped heavily along the pavement, chest pumping and stomach gurgling, she tried to order her thoughts into some kind of plan.

  Retracing the police steps was largely pointless. They’d spoken to Bob and ruled him out. She’d spoken to Bob and ruled him out. The police had done the same to the boyfriend, the neighbors and her teachers at school. All were incapable or elsewhere.

  The net needed to be widened. In 1995, there was no obvious way to pull together the social network of any one person. Apart from help the school might have given, it would really have been up to the parents to provide a list of friends and contacts.

  Amy had no friends at all in 2010, but in 1995 she was still at school, she still went to youth clubs, she had friends at home. Amy may not be able to maintain those connections but her friends from 1995 would still be around, linked together by their shared school years. Alex sprinted all the way to her front door.