But by the time Simon hears me only a bare couple of minutes later, and comes running out to see what’s going on, it’s too late.
Dan has suffocated to death in my arms.
After that, everything’s a blur of movement and confusion and screaming and bright lights stabbing through the dark. . . .
An ambulance parking at the front of the building, its blue swiveling light sweeping round and round, casting ghostly flashes up against the glass of the terrace, streaking across the plants, throwing eerie flashes of blue lightning across Dan’s face, across the paramedics bending down by his lifeless body, across my hands as they pry them loose from him and pull me away from his corpse . . .
Someone screaming like a maniac, wild and grieving and raucous. Not me. I’ve screamed my throat dry and I can barely speak. . . .
A paramedic holding me by the upper arms, her hair scraped back so tightly from her forehead that the skin looks stretched, the dark-blue eyeliner rimming her eyes, the sharp tone of her voice asking insistently over and over again what happened, if I saw Dan take anything, anything at all? But I didn’t. I don’t know what happened. And my voice is gone, so I just keep shaking my head, back and forth back and forth, until she says something about being in shock, and pushes me down on the bench and shoves my head down between my legs so I don’t faint. . . .
Simon, rushing to my side, asking me if I’m all right, sounding so concerned it makes me burst into tears and the paramedic shoos him away . . .
And Plum. Bursting through throngs of people, including Simon and the paramedic, yelling at me, “You killed him!” she screams. “You killed him!” I think Simon tries to say something to her, but she shoves him away. And she’s more than a match for the paramedic—she shoves her away, too, and keeps screaming at me: “You killed him, you bitch!” until finally the police come and take her away and soon I’m being taken away, too, out through the doors of Nadia’s apartment, down the elevator, into a car, and speeding off to God knows where. . . .
“Did you bring anything to the party, Scarlett?” the older policeman asks me. “You know what I mean, don’t you? Something to get things going, liven you up a bit?”
I stare at him, completely confused. I’m cold. They didn’t bring my coat. I don’t care about my coat, it was falling to pieces and too small for me anyway, but my arms are bare and feel like ice.
“I don’t think Scarlett understands what you’re asking,” says Lady Severs coldly. “And frankly, no more do I.”
She’s not in the best of moods, having been woken up and summoned to Knightsbridge police station so that the authorities can have an adult present when they formally question me. I didn’t realize they were going to ring her: they asked for my home phone number and twenty minutes later Lady Severs, wearing her usual tweed suit, sensible walking shoes, and disapproving frown, stalked into the waiting room. They must have sent a car for her.
The older policeman taps a pencil on the table and looks at his partner, who looks no more than twenty-one.
“Or something to relax you?” suggests the young policeman, smiling at me in such a friendly way it’s almost confusing, like we’ve met before and I just don’t remember. “You know, take the edge off? Lots of people do it.”
I shake my head, dumb from misery and incomprehension.
They exchange glances again.
“You won’t get in trouble if you tell the truth, Scarlett,” says the older policeman, and that does actually make me snort a bit. How moronic does he think I am? I mean, three-year-olds know that’s the biggest lie of all!
They must have misinterpreted my snort, because the older one’s eyes narrow into nasty slits, as does his mouth.
“All right, young lady,” he says, and his voice is now as menacing as a bad cop in American TV shows. “If that’s the way you want to do things, fine with me. I think you know we’re talking about illegal substances. What did you take to the party and give to Dan McAndrew when you were alone with him on the terrace? You’d better tell me right now, or you’ll be in even worse trouble.”
I gape at him, unable to believe what I’m hearing. Why would I ever want to hurt Dan? But then it dawns on me that these two men know nothing about my feelings for Dan. And I can’t tell them, because if I do I’ll burst into tears and never be able to stop.
“It was the first time you’d been asked to a party at Nadia Farouk’s, wasn’t it?” the younger policeman chips in. All pretend-friendliness has vanished: his tone’s equally unpleasant now. “You weren’t part of their crowd, were you? So why did they ask you along? Because you had something they wanted? Were you their new dealer? Come on, Scarlett, don’t piss around with us.”
I’m goggling at them. It’s really upsetting to have two police officers say such horrible things to you, with such nasty looks in their eyes, but their words are so far removed from any reality that I still can’t believe I’m hearing them. I know they want me to answer, but I’m so gobsmacked by what they’re suggesting that I’m tongue-tied. Which is not a bad thing, as Lady Severs is already jumping into the gap.
“What kind of language is that?” she demands furiously. “How dare you speak that way in my presence? And to suggest that Scarlett would—I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous and insulting in my life!”
“With respect, your ladyship,” says the older policeman, leaning toward her, “adults often have no idea what the kids in their charge are really getting up to.”
“My good man,” interrupts Lady Severs, in a voice so cold you could get frostbite from it, “I know exactly what Scarlett, as you put it, ‘gets up to.’ Scarlett is a gymnast. Four days a week, she trains with her two friends. Then she goes round to one or the other’s house to do her homework. I know that because, as arranged with her grandmother, a very dear friend of mine, one or other of the parents rings me to confirm that fact. She is always home by ten p.m. and goes straight up to her room. On the evenings that she does not see her friends, she is in her room doing her homework. There are very strict rules under which Scarlett is allowed to stay in my house, and I make sure she abides by them. She has to hand her mobile phone to me every night when she comes in, and retrieve it the next morning, to ensure that she doesn’t stay up late jabbering with her friends.”
It’s the policemen’s turn to stare, speechless, at Lady Severs.
“She might have another mobile you don’t know about . . . ,” starts the older one, but you can tell his heart isn’t in it. Lady Severs waves a hand at him dismissively, and he falls silent.
“Scarlett’s parents died when she was very young,” she continues, with so little feeling in her voice that it’s as if she were telling them what time it was. “She is the ward of her grandmother, and I agreed to put Scarlett up in my house during term-time on the strict condition that she would obey a system of behavior I deemed appropriate for a girl of her age. Any deviation of those rules, and she would no longer be welcome. She has kitchen access during specific hours of the day, and her own bathroom. And up till now, I must say, she has been very little trouble, all things considered.”
Both policemen turn and look at me. There’s silence for quite a while. Then the younger policeman holds up an index finger to the older one in a “hold on” gesture, gets up from his chair, and leaves the room. We sit there, saying nothing, till he returns. He’s holding a polystyrene cup, which he slides across the table to me. Hot tea with milk.
I’m really grateful. I blow on it and take a sip. It’s got a lot of sugar in it, which picks me up a little bit. And it makes talking easier, even though it hurts to swallow.
The policemen, despite themselves, are looking at me with pity now. Strangely, I dislike that even more than when they were doing the bad-cop interrogation routine. Pity’s worse than anything. Just ask an orphan—they’ll tell you that.
Great. How tragic is it to have policemen feeling sorry for you because you’re a pathetic orphan with the social life of roadkill? I almost pre
ferred it when they were thinking I was some kind of drug dealer. Still, I do want them to believe that the last thing in the world I wanted was to harm Dan.
God, I can’t believe he’s . . . gone. Tears prick at my eyelids. I shove the awful memory away. I’ll cry later. When I’m alone.
“How did you get permission to go to the party, Scarlett?” the older one asks, quite nicely now.
“Scarlett told me that she had been invited by the Saybourne girl,” Lady Severs answers. “A very good family. I see nothing wrong with the occasional socially acceptable gathering, once a month or so. Scarlett had a curfew, of course.”
The only thing Lady Severs didn’t know was that the party was unsupervised. A small detail that I conveniently left out. Only now I wish that Lady Severs had forbidden me to go. That way, none of us would be here.
And Dan might still be alive.
“Scarlett,” the younger policeman says. “You’re sure you didn’t see Dan take anything?”
I shake my head. My whole body feels so heavy, I feel like I’m sinking.
“No. The paramedic kept asking me that, but he didn’t do anything but drink a bit of champagne. He kept scrabbling in his pockets, though, when he was . . . when he was choking.”
I’m about to cry, so I have to stop talking. I stare down at my tea, squeezing the polystyrene to make the liquid into an oval shape, distracting myself so the tears won’t come again.
“He had severe allergies, apparently,” the younger one says. “You weren’t aware of that?”
“No,” I murmur. “But I hardly knew him.”
“You hardly knew him, but you were outside on the terrace with him, alone?” asks the younger policeman curiously.
“We were just talking,” I mumble.
He looks at his notes and follows his writing with his index finger. “You told the paramedic that you were kissing when he started to choke.”
Lady Severs turns to stare at me, making a loud, disapproving tutting sound with her tongue. The blood rushes to my face. Oh God, this is so awful. Why don’t they just write MURDEROUS SLUT on my forehead with a marker? They might as well. Plum will do it as soon as I go back to school.
Dan’s life is over, and my life is ruined. Feelings of misery are swallowing me whole. The older policeman has to repeat his next question before I take it in.
“Did you see Dan with a kind of glass tube? Like a thermometer, but bigger?”
“No,” I say blankly.
The policemen exchange glances. I wonder if this is some drug reference I’m not cool enough to get.
“The lab results haven’t come back yet, but one of our theories is that Dan may have died of an allergic reaction,” the older policeman explains. “Apparently, he always carried something called an EpiPen, so he could inject himself in case he had a possibly fatal reaction to something. That could have been what he was looking for in his pocket. However, it wasn’t on him, and we canvassed the apartment and didn’t turn up anything there either.”
“What could he have been allergic to?” I ask.
“That’s the mystery, isn’t it?” says the first policeman. “We’re trying to establish that. Definitive test results will most likely take weeks.”
Lady Severs clicks her tongue again and gathers her coat around her, a clear sign that she’s ready to leave. “So, to summarize, this unfortunate young man had some sort of allergic reaction, had been foolish enough not to bring his remedy with him, and dropped dead at Scarlett’s feet. I fail to see why she should be involved in this interrogation a moment longer.”
“Like we said before, my lady, it’s just one of our theories. Once the labs come back, we’ll have real clues as to what happened. Either way, she’ll have to testify at the inquest, I’m afraid,” the older policeman says.
Lady Severs gasps in dismay.
“Surely that’s not necessary!” she protests.
“I’m sorry, my lady. In any case of suspicious death like this, an inquest is mandatory.”
The older policeman gives me a long dubious stare. He may have given up the notion that I’m a drug dealer, but it’s quite obvious that he’s convinced I’m somehow responsible for Dan’s death.
I shiver, remembering Plum screaming at me.
He’s not the only one who thinks that.
“The publicity!” Lady Severs recoils from me, staring down her nose as if I’m what she would call a “common person” who’s dared to talk back to her. It’s her worst look of all.
Now that the initial shock of Dan’s collapse and death is draining away, now that I have some sweet milky tea inside me, the terrible truth of the situation is beginning to take hold of me. I’ve lost practically everything that made my life worth living: my old friends, my new acquaintances, my room in Holland Park (because I really doubt Lady Severs will let me go on living there, now that I’ve dragged her down to the Knightsbridge police station in the middle of the night and caused a huge scandal).
And Dan. I’ve lost anything that might have happened between me and Dan.
I remember his kiss, and tears come to my eyes.
It’s not just the policemen who think I might have caused Dan’s death. Plum did, too, and by now so will everyone else. Though I can’t remotely think of anything I could have done that could have hurt Dan, I was the last person to see him alive.
If the tests and the inquest don’t determine what killed him, every single person who knows about Dan’s death is going to assume that I’m to blame.
And the worst part is that so will I.
PART TWO: A.D.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I sit and look at those words for a long time. I want to write more, I really do.
But I’m scared.
I pick up my pen and start to scribble over the sentence, canceling it out. Years ago I learnt that to cover up words properly, you write other words on top of them, so that no one can squint and see the letters hiding underneath. So I write over the top. Again and again, till you can’t make out a single letter, just a tangled mass of black ink.
I put down my pen and stare at the paper. And then I realize that, without meaning to, I’ve used the same sentence that I wanted to conceal. I’ve written the same words over and over again, like those old-fashioned films where the teacher makes a schoolkid keep writing a sentence on a blackboard till the whole surface is filled with white chalk.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I’ve written.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I pick up the piece of paper and scrunch it up with my hand and throw it in the bin. Where it joins a crumpled-up mass of other papers, all with the same black mass scribbled on them, which is those same words written again and again and again. . . .
And I hate myself. Because I’m a coward. Because I’m not brave enough to look at those words on the page without canceling them out again straightaway.
I’m a coward. And right now I wish I was dead. Because this secret is much too big for me to be able to keep.
seven
A FRESH START
“The most important thing,” my grandmother says, “is that you put the past behind you. You mustn’t dwell. What can’t be cured must be endured.”
It’s all I can do to stop my eyes from rolling up in their sockets. You know, it’s much harder than you’d think to control your eyeballs. They’re used to moving without any conscious effort of the brain. How often do you have to tell your eyes to do something? Think how many times you tell your stomach to suck itself in. You never do that with your eyes, do you?
In an effort not to make a crazed face, I fix my stare on my grandmother till my eyes start watering. I’ve heard this speech from her hundreds of times before. Don’t dwell, pluck up, what-can’t-be-cured, etc., etc. Ever since my mother and father died—over a decade ago. And no matter how much she says it, it never helps.
“You’ve had the summer to let things settle,�
� my grandmother continues. “A few months.”
“Barely three,” I mumble.
“What, Scarlett?” my grandmother says impatiently. “Speak up. You know I can’t abide muttering.”
“Three months,” I say as I tug on the hem of my black sweater. “It’s barely been three months since . . .”
I still can’t say the words out loud: “since Dan died.”
My grandmother waves her hand. “More than enough time,” she says imperiously, commanding me with both the tone of her voice and her gesture to agree with her. “No dwelling, Scarlett. It stops you from achieving your goals. And stop fidgeting. It’s a nasty habit.”
There’s a loud knock on the door.
“Come!” my grandmother calls with the authoritative tone of the Queen Mother.
I don’t know why she doesn’t add in, but I’ve heard her say that single word so often that I take it for granted. Grandmother doesn’t run a bath, she “draws” it. She doesn’t drink tea, she “takes” it. All very old-fashioned, aristocratic English, the kind of thing you can really only get away with if you’re—
“Lady Wakefield? Your tea,” says her perfectly groomed assistant, Penelope, entering the room with the afternoon tea tray. Silver teapot, white bone china Minton cups, matching plate with plain dry tea biscuits.
“Scarlett?” my grandmother, Lady Wakefield, says. “Will you pour?”
My eyes want to start rolling once again. Grandmother is always trying to “make a lady of me.” I feel like an idiot lifting that big silver teapot—it’s like something out of a period film. But then, that’s how my grandmother lives. I look around her study, with its paneled mahogany walls and polished antique furniture. On the walls are paintings of our ancestors, including a Victorian Lady Wakefield in the appropriate corset and crinoline. It’s like a time capsule in here.
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