by TL Dyer
In the hospital corridor, alone and with Anna’s blood drying on my skin, my thumb had hovered over the delete button, the family’s memories of a beautiful, kind, intelligent and innocent daughter hanging in the balance.
Chapter 10
Ange hasn’t left for work yet. Her car’s on the driveway, and the house is lit up like Blackpool at Christmas. I’ve told them time and again about switching off lights when they leave a room. If they’d listen, she’d have already made up the deposit on that finca she wants, from electricity savings. I pull my uniform and kit bag from the boot of the car, and am only one foot in through the door when Ange comes down the hallway. It used to be Rumpole who was the first to greet me when I came in, rear end gyrating with the force of his wagging tail. These days he’s less energetic, preferring to wait for me to come to him.
‘Alright, love.’ She takes my uniform from me and kisses me on the cheek, drowning me in Flower by Kenzo, before returning down the hall to the kitchen.
There was a time when coming in through the door was no different to a team debrief session. I’d be drilled with questions for which, like a fish on dry land, I’d fumble and flounder to find the best answers, only for it to end in an argument or, at the very least, some pretty big huffing. These days we’ve adopted a more comfortable, neutral, detox zone – silence with occasional small talk – which after another long hectic shift just means giving me time to recalibrate my arse from my elbow.
I dump my kit bag on the floor, throw my jacket over the bannister, and follow the smell of fresh coffee and toast into the kitchen. Ange has hung my uniform over the door to the downstairs bathroom for cleaning later, and is pouring us both a hot one from the percolator. The toaster pops, and while she butters, I take a Budweiser from the fridge and grab the TV remote before sitting at the table next to the cereal bowl, milk and juice left out for Dan. Ange sets the toast in front of me.
‘It’s seven am, love,’ she says, eyeing the beer.
‘Seven pm to me.’
I chug a couple of mouthfuls, knowing that when I hit the sack later, I won’t have to set the alarm. Not for another four days.
‘Listen,’ Ange says, pulling out a chair and dragging her coffee mug over the table. ‘I’ve wangled a few more hours, so I haven’t got to be in until eleven. I’ll drop Dan at school and be right back. Do us a proper cooked breakfast, if you want.’
‘Yeah, why not.’
I point the remote to the flatscreen on the wall and switch from the morning shows to the news channel, turning the volume up a notch and chewing on toast as Dan shuffles into the room for his breakfast. Ange says a few words to him, but at this hour of the morning he’s voiceless and only has eyes for his cereals. I finish the toast, the coffee, and the beer, thinking about having another. Ange is occupying herself with her phone, what’s the likelihood she’ll notice if I get up to the fridge?
The Welsh news comes on and I turn it up. The announcement of an automotive plant closure in Swansea. An MP investigated over some dubious Tweets. A head teacher sentenced to two years for inappropriate messages sent to pupils. Knife crime on the rise despite new preventative campaigns by South East Wales Police – as based on figures pulled from someone’s rear end, dissected, pasted back together, and presented out of context. After that, a Wellbeing in the Community happy-clappy initiative established by residents in a Rhondda town. Then it’s the weather.
‘You’d think they’d say something.’
‘About what?’ Ange says, distracted, her attention on the phone where she’s scrolling some social media claptrap or other. I get up to pour another coffee from the machine.
‘Young girl killed and they can’t even give it the time of day.’
‘They did yesterday, love. I suppose it’s old news now.’
I turn with the mug in my hand. ‘Old fucking news?’
‘Steve!’ Her head snaps up and she glances at Dan, who breaks his vow of morning silence to snort a laugh, eyes glinting through his fringe. She taps a fingernail on the table. ‘Get a move on, you. I don’t want Miss Cartwright looking down her nose at me ‘cause we’re late again.’
As I flick through the news channels, a chair scrapes over the floor behind me, spoon rattles in a bowl, followed by the slide of rubber-soled slippers over the tiles, footsteps on the stairs. A second later, another chair is pushed back and dishes land in the sink. Then a hand on my arm.
‘You alright, love?’ Ange says.
‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’
I hate it when she gets like this. All melodramatic and walking on egg shells. It comes from reading too many bloody magazines. Or spending too much time on Twitter dissecting people’s mental health problems. Sometimes I think she’s just waiting for me to have a breakdown so she can join in the conversation. I switch off the TV and open the fridge.
‘Steve, don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ I say, with a half laugh. Don’t have another beer to wind down after a tough shift? Don’t relax now you’re home and you’ve got a few days off? Don’t think for yourself? I slam the fridge door shut, hard enough that the bottles rattle. ‘I need to get changed.’
I head out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom. The light’s on in there too, even though it’s brightening on the other side of the curtains now. I switch it off and drop onto the edge of the bed. I’m still sitting there ten minutes later when I hear her footsteps getting louder. Grabbing some clean underwear from the drawer, I lock myself in the en-suite and switch on the shower, staying there until she takes Dan to school.
*
‘I hated school,’ I tell Anna. I’m doing most of the talking, but she’s still listening. Her eyes are the palest blue I’ve ever seen, and for now those eyes are fixed on me, which is where I need them to be. ‘I wasn’t a troublemaker or anything. I couldn’t be, not with a copper for an old man. But I wasn’t exactly committed either.’
The firemen’s cutters break through the front passenger door post and she flinches in the direction of the noise.
‘It wasn’t ideal,’ I say, loud enough to draw her attention back. ‘Doesn’t allow much room for teenage rebellion. Maybe I should have been a vet. Or a zookeeper.’
I’m babbling now, saying anything and everything, talking nonsense just to keep her with me. Because if she closes her eyes for long enough...
‘They say people who work with animals are the best kind, don’t they? There might be something to that. Don’t think I’ve ever met an angry vet.’
She sucks in a long breath, eyes losing focus. I’m not sure she even hears what I’m saying. But for the briefest moment, her eyes locks onto mine as if she can see right through me. She runs a pale tongue over her dry bottom lip, and says barely clear enough for me to catch, ‘You’re doing what you should.’
*
Doing what you should.
Those words repeat in my head as I go downstairs in the now empty house, and tug my jacket from the bannister. They could have been my father’s words. They could have been a sign of some sort. They could have been the words I hadn’t realised I’d needed to hear. Or they could have just been Anna trying to make me feel better. Anna. Trying to make me feel better.
I zip up the jacket, take my keys from the side table and go out through the front door. I’m about to lock it, when Ange returns. She pulls the Tiguan into the driveway, holding out a questioning hand. The handbrake’s barely on before she’s out of the car.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out. Won’t be long.’ I peck her on the cheek and hurry to the Focus like I’m on a call.
‘What about breakfast?’ she calls after me, and adds between clenched teeth, ‘Steve, you’ve had a drink.’
‘Only one,’ I say, getting in the car and closing the door on her bewilderment. I throw her a wave she doesn’t return as I drive away, leaving the house behind. The further I get from it, the better I feel.
*
There’s someone
at home. I saw the curtains move when I pulled up and got out of the car. The Merc that was parked out the front earlier has gone, and there are no other vehicles in the driveway or by the kerb in the street. No family liaison officer or victim support. Too early for them, perhaps. I stand behind the frayed WELCOME mat on the doorstep and check my watch. 9.15. A key turns in the lock and the white PVC door cracks open a few inches.
‘Mrs Johnson?’ I ask, but the woman shakes her head.
‘She’s not here just now,’ she says, the words spoken with some difficulty, the voice strained. She’s maybe too old to be Anna’s mother. Her dark hair is silver at the roots, her eyes heavily lined.
‘I’m sorry to bother you. My name’s Steve Fuller, I’m a police officer.’
The door opens another inch. The smell of bacon filters out from the hallway. Behind the woman, a figure comes down the stairs. Pink leggings, unicorns for slippers, a heavy slow step.
‘They might be some time,’ the woman says, clutching at the door, reluctant maybe to open it further. Coppers only mean bad news. The worst news.
‘I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’m off duty. I just wanted to pay my respects to Anna’s parents. I was one of the officers at the scene.’
Pale blue eyes peer at me from the bottom of the stairs. The young girl clings to the bannister post. She wears a white hooded jacket, half-zipped, and her hair is black where it lies over her shoulders, but not as long as Anna’s. Her features, too, are not as developed as Anna’s, her face is still child-like, but the resemblance is striking.
‘They’re at the funeral directors. Making the arrangements.’
I look back to the woman, but she offers nothing more. She can’t. Her eyes are lost behind a film of tears.
‘Of course. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll call another time. My deepest condolences.’
I back away down the path, glancing once more to Anna’s sister before the door closes without a sound.
The traffic is still busy at this hour of the morning and it takes a while to get onto the motorway. But once I do, I’m pulling off it again a short while later and heading north. I pass the busy towns of Cwmbran, then Pontypool, before the roads open up as I hit the prettier rural spots, through Little Mill, Monkswood, and eventually the signs for the college campus come into sight.
Turning off the main road, I follow the arrows around the back of the Register Office to the car park. Most of the spaces are filled, but I find a spot no one wants, tucked up into an awkward corner, and reverse into it. I don’t intend to stop long, I’m just curious.
Rain spatters the windscreen, the start of a shower. I stay in the car, watch as the students arrive, some in groups, some alone. Some like Anna. Some not. Which ones knew her? Knew of her? They would all know about her now. Only a few days ago she’d have been here the same as them, pulling the Punto into a parking space, thinking of her next assignment, what she did last night, where she was going at the weekend. Everyday stuff. Maybe planning to speak to Stokes, or worrying over what to do about Brad. And for what? Because all of that’s over now. None of it matters.
The rain comes down heavier. I flick the wipers on and turn the heaters up to stave off the chill creeping into the car and the feeling it puts in my bones like I might be coming down with something. My phone vibrates on the dashboard, Ange’s name lighting up the screen. I let it go to voicemail, put the car in gear, and drive away from Anna’s college. Away from Anna’s future. Anna’s life.
‘Ready for that breakfast?’ Ange asks, when I get in for the second time.
I hang my jacket on the hooks by the door and turn to the stairs. ‘Nah, I’m beat. I’m going to bed.’
‘Steve.’
I stop halfway up. She leans into the bannister and looks up at me.
‘Now’s the time to keep busy, love, don’t you think? I’ve got some agents valuing the Lobster Pot over the next few days. We’ll be able to make proper plans then. Start thinking about the future.’
I look at her for a long while. I suppose I’m trying to think of a response. One that will satisfy her. One that will satisfy me. I look for so long, I forget what she said.
‘Right,’ I say, and go up the rest of the stairs to bed.
Chapter 11
Anna’s father has made us cups of tea and dug out some Shortie biscuits that it took him more than a few minutes to find a plate for. Stood in the kitchen, he’d stared at the cabinets on the wall with a kind of muted agitation that suggested he no longer recognised them – what they’d become, or how they even got there in the first place. When I told him not to go to so much trouble, the tea was more than enough, that’s when he’d looked my way with the same irritation hardening his features. But a second or two later, it came to him, and he reached for the cabinet closest to his right shoulder to take down a plate.
Now we sit in the lounge, me on the sofa, Toby Johnson in the armchair beside me, the tea and biscuits on their tray set down on the coffee table. Across the room from us, perched on the end of the second armchair, sits Anna’s mother. Like Toby, what crosses her face is difficult to read. One moment she’s strangely still, vacant, the next teary. She’s a frightened bird, caught at the edge of a main road during rush hour, who’s forgotten what its wings are for.
Mary Johnson looks nothing like her daughter. Her neat, trimmed hair is a deep red – rich enough to add some vibrancy to her well-defined cheekbones on any other day perhaps, but its unnaturalness makes it difficult to pinpoint any resemblance to her eldest offspring. Toby is the dark-haired contributor, though his eyes are dark too, not blue like Anna’s. He does all the talking. Mary hardly speaks at all, she only sobs quietly now and then where she sits with her elbows propped on her thighs, leaning forward as if relaxing were still not an option. Not yet. Maybe never again.
It’s warm in the room. The central heating’s on. I feel it in the sweat that’s dampened the armpits of my shirt when I reach for the tea, and in the air that blocks my nose with the dust burning off radiators not been used in a while. Now and then, a trickle of water passes through the pipes. There are no other sounds in the house. No washing machine, or tumble dryer, or creaking of the floorboards overhead. No other visitors either, nor signs of Anna’s sister or the woman who opened the door to me earlier.
When I first got here, they thought it was to give them the outcome of the investigation, but when I explained I was the officer with Anna that night, Toby couldn’t welcome me into the house quick enough. Mary had looked more reluctant. But then it’s late afternoon and they’ve had a long day.
Toby tells me they were a good few hours at the funeral arrangers. He says the questions were harder than he expected, and a part of him was ready to agree to anything just to have it done, while another was telling him these would be the most crucial choices he’d ever be asked to make, and he was being asked to make them at a time when just picking what clothes to put on in the morning was almost too exhausting to bear.
His eyes water. Proud man that I can see he is, I look away.
Anna is all over the place. School photos, family portraits. On the walls, on the mantelpiece, and beside the lit candles on a low cabinet to Mary’s right.
‘She wasn’t alone, Mrs Johnson,’ I say, and she peers over at me without turning her head. It’s like she’s afraid to look at me, afraid of what I might tell her. ‘Your daughter never felt alone, I can assure you of that.’
Mary brings the tissue to her eyes. Toby rests his chin on his chest and nods. A pair so equally united and utterly separate in their grief. I’ve seen it time and again. Not all marriages survive it. How can they, when the very thing meant to complete your partnership is gone?
‘She wasn’t in any pain,’ I add.
Her tearing cry, long and brutal. Fingernails digging into the back of my hand, leaving a mark I didn’t notice until much later.
‘She was in shock. She couldn’t feel anything.’
Toby brings his head up and thank
s me. He looks like there’s more to add, but he can’t speak it, and I’m glad. That’s not what I came for.
‘Did she say anything?’ a thin voice asks from the other end of the room. The tissue Mary clutches between her fingers is crumpled and torn, bits of it break loose, fluttering to the floor, some of it clinging to her wool skirt.
‘We spoke about lots of things.’ Delete messages. They can’t... I can’t... ‘She told me about her studies. And about her sister. About the veterinary practice.’
Mary splutters a brief laugh, surprising herself as much as any of us. She covers it by saying, ‘She loved her animals.’
‘She did,’ Toby confirms. ‘She absolutely did. Drove us up the bloody wall with them round the place. Dogs, cats, hamsters, rabbit. Then there was the horse once. Remember that, love? She wanted us to buy that filly?’
Mary nods but her gaze goes back to the tissue she tears in her hands. Wishing she’d bought the horse, perhaps. Thinking that might have made the difference.
‘We had to put our foot down over that, didn’t we, Mary, love? It’s the expense more than anything, you know?’ Toby tips his head at the closed patio doors behind him. ‘Chester’s not been right at all. That’s her cat. He’s only been as far as the garden, won’t stick his paw above the fence. I think he’s waiting for her.’
Mary stifles a sob and reaches for a fresh tissue from the box at her side. Toby’s lip quivers beneath his moustache and he brushes his hand over it.
On the wall above the fireplace, Anna sits behind her sister. Both are in dark green school uniforms and looking back at us with the most congenial of smiles. Sienna’s is close-lipped and bashful, Anna’s is broad and natural and shows her teeth. Her eyes are as pale as they were the other night, except in the photo they’re calm, and brightened by the clarity of youth. Everything ahead of her.