Then you looked at me, and at that moment the sun came out from behind the clouds and shone through the window on the back of my neck and on your face, making everything orange, and you looked so nice I wanted to walk through the flowery paper and slide my arms around you and press my face against your chest. I wanted to close my eyes and listen to your heart beating, and to tell you I didn’t care if you’d taken a hundred girls because just being with you was all I ever wanted.
‘Samuel . . .’ I said.
You let go of the roller and shielded your eyes against the light so you could see me. I bit my lip and hoped you thought I looked nice.
‘. . . do you think she’s dead?’
You didn’t move. You just kept looking at me, your hand above your eyes. Then you cleared your throat, looked down at the floor, then back at me. You said, ‘I think it’s likely, don’t you?’
I got a weird feeling then, deep inside – like nothing anywhere in the whole universe mattered except you and me – like we belonged, in some preordained, destined way, to each other. Like fate.
And then you turned away and started painting again and, after a bit, you said, ‘Well, I could murder a sandwich.’
I was so happy, I couldn’t answer right away. I was smiling too much, my heart going too fast. I clicked my fingers for Bea to come over and bent down and gave her a big fuss. ‘OK,’ I said.
‘There’s some money on the microwave. They do sandwiches at the parade just there.’
Bea sat at the top of the stairs and just looked at me as I went down, but when I called her, she came. She followed me into the kitchen, watching me as I got the tenner and three pound coins off the microwave and pushed them into the pocket of my jeans. I looked round to see what you had in, because I wasn’t going to get you a pre-packed sandwich. I was going to make you one.
There was some bread in its bag on the worktop but it wasn’t nice bread, just Hovis, and quarter of a tub of Stork margarine that was green in one corner.
‘That’s not nice, is it?’ I said to Bea, which made her bark.
Then I looked in the fridge and nearly died, because the only thing in there apart from milk, right in the middle, was half a family bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Turkish Delight! I couldn’t believe it. You had my favourite chocolate in your fridge! I don’t know why it was in the fridge, because that’s a weird place for chocolate, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that my favourite chocolate was your favourite chocolate too! It was something else we had in common – another omen telling me everything was going to be OK. I told myself it meant you weren’t going to sell your house. And then I remembered something from CSI: Miami – something completely brilliant. The police always watch out for anyone looking to move away after a murder’s happened, so you couldn’t sell. Putting the house on the market would be like telling the police it was you. I was so happy then – knowing you’d have to stay, knowing I could be your friend forever – that I took Bea out without even asking you. It felt like I lived there, doing that – like you and me and Bea were a proper family that could just come and go without having to ask each other.
I went to the parade first, where you’d said, but they didn’t have much and it wouldn’t give Bea enough exercise anyway, so I carried on to the Co-op on the other side of the estate. I was thinking about sandwiches all the way because I didn’t want to make you any old sandwich. I wanted to make you the best sandwich you’d ever had.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt nervous in a food shop before, but I did then, standing by the fridge section with my empty basket. I stared at all the ham and pâté and cheeses in the fridge and then stared at them all again. I couldn’t decide whether to buy ham or get cheese and do like a ploughman’s. Then I saw some slices of beef and I knew I’d get them, so it was easier after that. I got two Little Gem lettuces, two big tomatoes, mayonnaise, crusty white bread, mustard (in case you didn’t have any) and Worcester sauce crisps, because I thought they’d go well with it. I got two small bottles of Diet Coke to drink and a bar of Cadbury’s Turkish Delight for after. I thought maybe I’d pretend I hadn’t seen the one in your fridge so it’d be like an incredible coincidence and you’d be as surprised as I was. Then, on the way to the till, I passed the pet food and got Bea a tin of Cesar so she wouldn’t be left out.
I deliberately didn’t look at the newspaper stand near the checkout, but somehow I saw the headline anyway: LOCAL MAN ARRESTED OVER MISSING SCHOOLGIRL. I turned away and, at the exact same moment, through the window, I saw Alice.
I held the money out, even though the man behind the till was still ringing up the things in my basket and putting them in the bag.
She was on the other side of the road, walking away so I could only see the back of her head. Then a bus came, blocking my view of her, and the man was putting change in my hand.
I raced outside with the bag and, leaving Bea tied up, ran across the road.
She wasn’t there. I turned round on the spot, thinking, how could she have disappeared like that? There wasn’t anywhere she could’ve gone. I went back and got Bea, then crossed the road again. She hadn’t gone into the hairdressers or the nail bar. Then, a bit further on, just past the shops, I saw there was a cut-through, a narrow footpath overgrown with ivy all round the entrance.
‘Up here, Bea,’ I said, pulling her off a half-eaten chicken leg.
The path was quite long with a kink in it that led to a road I’d never been on before. The houses were new, all detached and quite posh, set back from the road with tidy green lawns in front of them. I didn’t see her for a second because she’d turned into a crescent on the other side and was hidden by a hedge, but then I did.
‘Alice?’ I called, crossing over. ‘Alice!’
She kept going.
‘’Scuse me!’
She stopped then, but the second she turned round I could see it wasn’t her. She wasn’t really anything like Alice, apart from her hair and the way she walked. She was younger, too – maybe only twelve or thirteen – and the face plumper, not as nice.
‘Oh, sorry,’ I called and I held up my bag of shopping in a sort of wave.
She stood for a second, looking, then turned back and carried on. I put the bag on the ground and puffed on my inhaler, holding my breath and counting slowly to five as I watched her disappear round the corner.
When I got back to yours, I called up like Mum does when she gets home. I could hear music upstairs on the radio. Then I went into the kitchen and cleared a bunch of paperwork and a dirty mug off the table and wiped it with washing-up liquid because there wasn’t anything like Cif or Mr Muscle. Then I washed up the stuff in the sink and Bea’s bowl that looked like it hadn’t been washed since Mrs E. Caldwell had died, and after that I found a plastic chopping board in one of the cupboards and got to work on the lunch.
When you came down, it looked the business. I’d put crisps on the side of the plate, the sandwiches were bulging and the Cokes were fizzing with ice in them.
‘Blimey,’ you said, going over to the sink, because you were really impressed, I think, and you washed your hands while I gave Bea her special lunch.
‘I didn’t put any mustard on in case you don’t like it,’ I said.
You sat down and picked up the bottle. ‘Love a bit of mustard,’ you said and after you’d opened your sandwich up and squeezed some on, you ate the lot – the crisps and everything.
I can’t tell you how brilliant it was, watching you eat the sandwich I’d made for you, especially when you went ‘Mmmm’ with your mouth full. It made me want to cook every meal for you every day and I made a mental note to look up recipes online so I could impress you with something one evening like I’d just made it up myself. Then I got the Cadbury’s Turkish Delight out of the plastic bag and held it up, grinning. I couldn’t be bothered to pretend I hadn’t seen the bar in the fridge. ‘I got us some of this,’ I said. ‘It’s my favourite chocolate too!’
You didn’t seem as amazed as I
was that we both liked the same chocolate, but I guess that’s because you’re older and older people don’t get amazed very easily. You said you’d have some later on.
Then you went back upstairs to carry on painting. I closed the kitchen door. I didn’t want you to know what I was going to do, which was to clean the whole kitchen till it sparkled. I thought doing that would definitely amaze you.
Bea got in her basket in the corner and I stood in the middle of the floor, looking round. I felt like Julie Andrews in that bit in The Sound of Music when she looks at all the kids lined up and smacks her hand down on top of her head, like, where do I start? (I know I shouldn’t admit to knowing any bits from The Sound of Music, but hey, who says Trekkies can’t like sappy stuff too?) I was acting it up a bit to be honest, because it wasn’t like it was a complete mess in there, but it was pretty dirty. There was mud all round the door and bits of Bea’s food stuck to the lino and the windowsill was covered in a sticky sort of film with dead flies on it.
First of all, I piled up the clean dishes from the draining board on the worktop. Then I emptied the stuff in the washing up bowl and rinsed it out. The hot water didn’t get warm even after ages, so rather than ask you, I boiled the kettle. Then I put a squirt of washing-up liquid in each of the two dirty saucepans and put boiling water on top and left them to soak. Then I boiled some more water for the sink and started on the washing up. I had to stop halfway through to dry because the draining board got full, but it didn’t take long to do it all. Then came the best bit – the reorganising – because once I’d chucked all the out-of-date stuff in the cupboards away, they were pretty empty. I decided to change things round a bit, thinking all the time about where everything would be best for you, like, for example, because you’re tall I moved all the small plates from the cupboard under the worktop to the one the other end and above the toaster where they’d be easy for you to get to – especially when you’d just woken up and wanted some toast. It was brilliant putting everything in new places – like it was our place, not just yours, and I could have everything just how I wanted. I even cleaned the cupboards before I put anything in them. I wanted it to be perfect.
When I’d finished, I shut Bea in the front room and cleaned the floor, thinking how Gary was actually right about one bottle of soap being all you need to clean a house. ‘It’s all the same stuff,’ he always says, throwing his arm out at the adverts on telly like they can hear him. ‘Just in different bottles! They must think we’re stupid!’
Then I went upstairs. You’d nearly finished. ‘Smart,’ I said, looking round the walls.
You stopped painting and wiped your arm across your forehead. Downstairs, Bea scratched at the front-room door. You must’ve heard because you said, ‘You alright down there?’
And then I couldn’t wait to show you, even though the floor wouldn’t be dry yet. ‘Come and see,’ I said.
You said you’d just finish up and I went to put the kettle on, listening out for you all the time because I didn’t want you to just walk in. I wanted to be with you when you saw it.
When you still hadn’t come down and I’d made the tea and broken the Turkish Delight from the fridge up into chunks and arranged them all nicely on one of your mum’s old-fashioned saucers, I called up.
‘OK,’ you said, ‘just coming,’ and then as you came downstairs and saw me standing in the hall with Bea in my arms, grinning at you, you said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Close your eyes,’ I said. Then I put Bea down and because you hadn’t closed your eyes and I didn’t want to ask again in case it seemed a bit babyish, I went ahead of you and closed the kitchen door instead. ‘OK,’ I said when you got there. ‘You ready?’
I opened it.
You looked around for a few seconds, then you scratched the side of your head. ‘Oh, right,’ you said.
‘I did all the cupboards too,’ I said. ‘Everything.’
You didn’t say anything else, so then I went in and got you to come in too and opened the cupboards to show you how smart they all were and where I’d moved things to.
You just stood there the whole time, smoothing your hair down at the back like you were too embarrassed to really look – like you didn’t think you deserved to have all that done for you or something.
‘What d’you think?’ I said.
‘Oh,’ you said after a few seconds, ‘fine.’
I laughed, looking up at you and said, ‘Fine? Is that all?’
You smiled, but you still looked embarrassed. Then you said, ‘You’re an angel.’
I was so happy I had to hug you. I couldn’t help it. I squeezed you as tight as I could, pressing my head against your chest just like I’d wanted to for ages, then putting your arms round me, one then the other, so that you were hugging me back.
Mum wasn’t in the room when I got to the hotel, so I didn’t have to pretend that this was a terrible day with Gary under arrest when it felt like the most brilliant day ever. And I knew it was pointless telling her what you’d said about how the police arrest the wrong people all the time just so it looks like they’re getting somewhere, because she wouldn’t believe it.
I believed it, though. I believed everything was going to be OK – better than OK, even. I fiddled about with the remote control till I got the telly working. When BBC News 24 came on, I did a big groan at the man on the screen and told him, ‘No news today thank you, Mr News Reporter, I’m not in the mood,’ and I pressed Menu and went through the channels till I got to 4Music. I turned it up full. Then I closed the curtains, put the bedside lamps on, got a Diet Coke out of the mini fridge in the cupboard and danced round the room. I was thinking about your face when I’d showed you the kitchen, and you going, ‘You’re an angel.’ I thought about you in that dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and about your lovely, lovely eyes, and when I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I waved at my reflection. ‘Whoooo!’ I called over the music, holding my Coke up and pretending my reflection was you. ‘Do you love me, Samuel?’ Then, because you couldn’t hear me, I laughed and called again. ‘I said, do you love me!?’ Then I turned round and Mum was there, standing in the doorway, the keycard in her hand.
I grabbed the remote and muted the telly. ‘Hi,’ I said.
‘What’re you doing?’ she said.
I sat on the bed, catching my breath, blowing up on my fringe. ‘I was just, you know, doing a bit of exercise.’
‘I’ve been trying to find you for hours,’ she said. ‘I’ve been everywhere.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I said feebly. ‘I was in town. Why? What is it?’
Then she put the back of her hand under her nose like she was going to cry, so I got up and went over and put my arm round her.
‘What’s happened?’ I said.
‘It was a hair elastic,’ she said, breaking down. ‘It was a forensic match.’
‘Oh my God!’ I said, because straight away I knew. It was the hairband I’d picked up from the changing-room floor, the one I’d been fiddling with when Gary gave me a lift.
‘What is it?’ Mum said.
My hands were over my mouth. I stared at her. I took my hands away. ‘I dropped it there.’
‘What?’ she said, and she seized me by the shoulders. ‘Oh my God, we have to go! We have to tell them!’
A car picked us up. Mum gripped my hand the whole way. She’d already told whoever it was that answered the phone about me dropping Alice’s hairband but she couldn’t get there fast enough to tell them again.
When we arrived, though, we had to wait for about twenty minutes. Mum was sitting on the edge of her plastic chair, clutching her handbag and watching people going in and out through the swing doors like she couldn’t stand waiting for a second longer. Then DI Grayson appeared and she jumped up. ‘We’ve come to make a statement,’ she said.
‘We’ll need to speak to you separately,’ he said.
‘OK,’ Mum said, nodding and putting her hand on my back. ‘That’s fine. You
’ll tell them, won’t you, love?’
DI Grayson showed me into the first room along the corridor. It was bigger than the one at the other station. There was a microphone on the table, and a camera high up in the corner.
‘Have a seat,’ he said pointing to the one he wanted me in. He dragged one of the chairs on the other side so it was further away from the table and sat on it, crossing his legs. He held out one arm then the other, brushing his sleeves.
Then DI Burke came through the door and I thought, thank God, because it was better than being alone with the horrible crow. ‘Hello Yasmin,’ she said. She sat down opposite me, glanced at her watch and said the time and date, then put her hands flat on the table, palms down.
‘You’d like to tell us about Alice’s hair elastic?’ she said.
‘I dropped it in Gary’s van,’ I said, glancing at DI Grayson. ‘I was fiddling with it on the way home and must’ve dropped it.’
‘Can you describe it?’
‘Yeah. It’s brown with gold bits in it – like gold thread.’
DI Burke nodded. ‘And when was this? Which day?’
I chewed my cheek because I didn’t know. ‘It was last week,’ I said, then remembered I’d found it after PE. ‘On Tuesday. I saw it on the floor in the changing room and picked it up.’
DI Burke tilted her head a bit and frowned. ‘Why did you pick it up?’
I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Because I saw it.’
‘Did you know it was Alice’s?’
I looked at her. I didn’t know whether to say yes or no or even if it mattered.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Alice always has those ones. And it was where she’d been.’
‘What d’you mean, where she’d been?’
‘Where she was changing. We’d had PE.’
DI Grayson coughed into his fist. ‘Where have you been today?’ he said.
‘In town,’ I said.
‘Shopping?’ Sarcastic like always.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Just looking round. Mum said I should go. She was coming here and said I should go into town.’
Things We Have in Common Page 17