by Mark Edwards
Laura spoke. ‘Maybe you should talk to her. It might help you.’
‘Who?’
‘Alina. She’s here.’
So she had been imagining ghosts again.
‘Laura, Alina is dead.’
‘I know. But she’s come to find me.’ She leaned even closer, her eyes stretched wide. She looked left then right, checked behind her. Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. ‘I know what’s following us, Daniel. It’s evil. The evil from that house . . . It followed us home. You need to be careful, to stop telling people about what happened. Because every time you tell someone, you prise open the crack a little more and let the evil through.’
The way she was talking, the intensity of her gaze, the darkening sky and the echo of everything that had happened . . . For a second, I believed her. This was it, the explanation. Evil. The supernatural.
‘The black dog—it wasn’t real,’ she said. ‘It was . . . a symbol. Or maybe, maybe a physical manifestation of the darkness that followed us out of the forest. The evil.’
I tried to keep my voice even. ‘It was very real, Laura. It jumped on top of me, tried to tear my throat out.’
She looked at me sadly. ‘Oh, Daniel. I’m not saying it was a . . . phantom. Like I said, it was a physical mani—’
‘No, this is crazy.’
Something soft touched my face and I realised it was snowing again. But this time it was fat, substantial, the kind that settles, closing schools and shutting down train lines. Heavy snow, this early in the season . . . It added to my feeling that the weather was somehow echoing my emotions. No doubt Laura would say we had caused it—that it was coming through this crack she talked about, brought forth by evil spirits.
The snow swirled around us, the air suddenly so dark and thick that the Tate Modern became a shimmering silhouette, and it felt like Laura and I were the only people in the world. When she took my hand I wanted more than anything for it to be the way it used to be. I wanted to kiss her, to put my arms around her and just cling to her, to hold on and hope that all of the madness would go away, leave us alone. Let us be.
‘It’s OK,’ Laura whispered. The snow was settling already. It clung to her hat and coat and her face was wet. She blinked snowflakes from her eyelashes. ‘Alina will help us.’
‘But Alina is dead! Laura, I know you believe in ghosts, I understand everything that happened when you were a kid, but this is in your head. Caused by . . . what happened and the drugs you were taking. And all this stuff about growing a new skin.’ I spoke gently. ‘You need to get help.’
‘No, Danny. No. Don’t you see? She’s come back to guide us.’
‘Laura . . .’
She tilted her head. She hardly seemed to be aware of the snow. She should never have been discharged from the hospital, I thought.
‘Laura, I think you should see a doctor.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Another one? See if they’ll give me more drugs?’
‘Not that kind of doctor.’ I groped for something to say to persuade her. The weather was getting worse. Eventually, I said, ‘Let’s get inside before this snow buries us.’
She appeared to come to her senses, and I took her hand and ran with her towards the gallery. We took shelter in the vast entrance hall, shaking the snow from our clothes, the security staff glaring as we dripped all over the floor. She went into the Ladies and I went into the Gents, which was empty. I stuck my wet head beneath the drier then studied my face in the mirror. I dried my glasses on my T-shirt and tried to trap the thoughts that were running wildly around my head, to save them for later.
I waited for Laura outside the Ladies. Several women came out, but no Laura. When a woman around my age came out five minutes later, I asked her if she would check if my ‘wife’ was in there. She strode away, leaving me open-mouthed, shocked by her rudeness. I stuck my head in the door, calling Laura’s name. All the cubicles stood open. She had gone.
I hurried back towards the entrance and approached the security man.
‘The woman I came in with—have you seen her?’
He shook his head. ‘You’d have to be mad to go out there,’ he said. ‘It’s a blizzard.’
I went over to the door and peered out. The air was opaque, the snow so heavy that it seemed possible that it might bury the city. Through the curtain of snow, I saw a dark figure in the distance. I ran outside, calling, ‘Laura!’
If it was her, she was swallowed up by the snowstorm. I went back inside, brushing the snowflakes from my coat, and considered looking around the gallery. Maybe she was in the café or the shop. Perhaps she had gone upstairs to look at the art. But before I could decide what to do, my mobile rang.
It was my friend Barney, someone Jake and I hung around with sometimes. He had moved out of London and started having kids. I hadn’t heard from him for ages.
‘Barney! Sorry, it’s not a great—’
‘Have you seen the news?’
His tone of voice scared me. ‘No, I’m out. Why, what’s happened?’
‘It’s Jake. I think . . . I assume you can get online on your phone? I’ll send you the link now.’
It felt like the snow was falling directly into my bloodstream. ‘What about Jake? Come on, you have to tell me.’
He hesitated and I knew this wasn’t going to be news about Jake getting a big record deal.
‘I think you should read it yourself,’ he said. ‘But ring me after, yeah?’ His voice cracked and he hung up before I could say anything else. A text arrived from him containing a link to BBC News. I hesitated, happy to be ignorant for another second, then clicked. I found myself looking at one of Jake’s publicity shots, his eyes downcast, looking sensitive and brooding. Above this was the headline:
Tragic suicide of musician on the brink of the big time
Police have confirmed that they are treating the death of Jake Turner, whose body was found beneath Thornberry Bridge last night, as a suicide.
Turner, 32, was on the verge of signing a deal with a major record company, his manager said.
Then there was a section about famous musicians who had killed themselves. I stared at my phone, unable to take it in. Jake—dead? Last night? He had left me at around 4 p.m. and gone straight to the meeting with the record company. And suicide? Jake was the least likely person to kill himself I had ever met, and when I saw him he had been on a dizzying high, about to achieve all his dreams. Had the record company let him down, crushed those dreams? Surely he wouldn’t commit suicide because of that. And he had told me he had two other companies interested. Even if the first meeting had gone badly, he would still have had hope.
I knew Robin, his manager, and called him, facing away from the security guy, who was watching me curiously. My hand was shaking and I was sure I was going to throw up. But at the same time I was sure this was all a mistake. Jake couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. My eyes filled with tears as I heard the ‘user busy’ tone.
I called Barney instead.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘Jake wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t depressed. Everything was going fucking amazingly for him.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Do you know how he’s supposed to have done it?’ I asked.
He hesitated.
‘Come on, Barney.’ I raised my voice. ‘If you know, just tell me.’
‘He jumped off a bridge. Thornberry Lane.’
‘In Archway?’ I knew the bridge well. It was a ten-minute walk from Jake’s flat.
‘Yeah. You know, the three of us have walked over that bridge loads of times.’
We both fell quiet for a moment.
‘And did he . . . Do you know if he left a note?’
‘I don’t know.’
We ended the call with Barney mutter
ing something about seeing me at the funeral. I wandered outside and sat on a wet bench, oblivious to the snow swirling around me and the cold moisture soaking through the seat of my jeans.
I couldn’t believe it. Jake, committing suicide. When I saw him yesterday he had been so happy and excited. He had been horrified by what I had told him about Romania but . . .
It struck me.
I had spoken to two people about what had happened to Laura and me, both within the last few days. I’d told Dr Sauvage part of the story, and more to Jake.
And now they were both dead.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As predicted, public transport was in chaos, buses and trains grinding to a halt, taxis stranded. I joined the crowds of people leaving their offices early and battled through the streets. All I could think about was Jake, unable to shake my disbelief that he had killed himself. Struggling through the blizzard, my face and hands so cold I thought my skin might crack and fall from my bones, I remembered a conversation with Jake a year or so before, when he was at his lowest point, unable to get anyone interested in his music, while his biggest rival was at the peak of his success. We’d sat in a crowded pub in Angel, Jake wearing a bleak expression, devoid of his usual spark and bounce.
‘Sometimes,’ he said, sipping his coffee, ‘I think I should jack all this in and do something useful. I mean, Christ, the world needs more singer-songwriters like it needs another hole in the ozone layer. I’m thirty-two now. I’m too old for this.’
‘Officially, you’re twenty-six though, aren’t you? That’s what it says on your profile on YouTube.’
He grinned. ‘Yeah. Well, I can just about get away with that. My dad told me I should train as a plumber.’ He blew air through his nose. ‘My dad lives next door to a plumber. Apparently he’s just bought a brand new Audi.’
‘The plumber or your dad?’
‘Ha! My dad has a pushbike. Actually, not even that. He goes everywhere on Boris bikes.’
‘You’re not going to give up though, are you?’ I said, lifting my pint to my lips. ‘This is the thing you’ve always wanted.’
He rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know. I can picture myself in ten years, going on The X Factor and telling the judges this is my last chance, that it means everything to me.’
He looked up at me.
‘I’m not going to give up though, Dan. Never. I’m still going to be doing this when I’m ninety. I’m not going to become a fucking plumber.’
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with being a plumber.’
He laughed. ‘Very true, mate. It’s just not very me, is it?’
And that was Jake all over. He was not a quitter. Of course, none of us ever fully knows other people; we can’t see inside their heads. But time and again, since I’d known him, Jake had demonstrated that he was determined, unswerving. Even if something had gone wrong at the last moment, I was sure he wouldn’t commit suicide. He had even told me that if he didn’t get a deal it wouldn’t matter.
‘I’ll release the music myself,’ he said. ‘Cut out the middle man. Loads of people do that these days.’
I stopped and leaned against a wall as the tears came, the realisation that I would never see him again, never hear his voice, his laugh, smell the aroma of coffee that clung to him. To everyone else, the people who didn’t know him, the world had lost a talent, a singer. They had lost his songs. But I had lost my best friend, the person who knew more about me than anyone else. I had lost Laura. I hardly ever saw my parents. I had no siblings. And now I had lost my only real friend.
‘What the fuck am I going to do without you?’ I whispered into the snow.
As I got closer to home, I realised I was only a street away from the local police station. I needed to do something. I headed towards it.
The heating was cranked up so high that as soon as I stepped into the police station the snow began to melt and drip from my clothes, my flesh thawing as a puddle spread around me on the floor. A middle-aged man was arguing with the woman at the reception desk, something about his neighbour’s Range Rover. I tuned out and studied the posters on the wall. Missing teenagers. Crimestoppers. An appeal for information about a knife attack in a kebab shop.
The irate man eventually left, heading out into the slackening snowstorm. The receptionist eyed me, soggy and shivering, with distaste. I remembered the last police station I’d been in and felt even colder.
‘Can I help you?’
I approached the desk. ‘Yes, I need to talk to about the death of Jake Turner.’
She cocked her head.
‘He apparently committed suicide last night. But I was with him a few hours before he died. There’s no way he would have killed himself. He was my best friend.’
She studied my face, then said, ‘Please take a seat and I’ll find someone for you to talk to.’
Five minutes later, a female police officer appeared, the third member of the police I’d spoken to in the last week. I wondered if they had my name on a database now, with an alert next to it: nutter.
‘I’m PC Coates. How can I help you?’ she asked.
I told her what I’d already said to the receptionist. ‘I know that bridge is renowned for suicides. But Jake would never have jumped.’ I stared into her blue eyes, willing her to take me seriously. ‘He must have been pushed. Murdered.’
Coates looked at me sympathetically. ‘I understand it can be difficult to believe it when a close friend chooses to take their own life.’
‘But how do you know he killed himself?’
‘Wait here.’
She disappeared behind the desk and came back later holding a sheet of paper.
‘Mr Turner sent a text to his sister. I’m afraid I can’t tell you the exact contents of his message at the moment but it was clear that he was intending to commit suicide. The text was sent just before a passing motorist spotted the body.’ She grimaced. ‘I’m very sorry. If you know Mr Turner’s sister, perhaps you should talk to her. It might offer you some comfort to talk to another person who was close to him.’
She explained that the body had been referred to the coroner, who would need to complete a report before the body could be released for the funeral.
‘It’s not the first death,’ I said, aware of the sceptical look that appeared on her face. ‘My therapist, Dr Claudia Sauvage—her house burned down and it said in the paper it was arson.’ I wanted to grab her hand, make her believe me. ‘I think they’re connected.’
‘Wait here,’ she said.
I was going to have to tell the police about Romania. When she came back, I would tell her the story, make her see. Although that might put her in danger . . . No, she was police. She’d be fine.
I was deep in thought when she returned.
‘Dr Claudia Sauvage of Grosvenor Road in Crouch End?’ she said, sitting down.
‘Yes! If it was arson, it must—’
She held up a hand. ‘It wasn’t arson, Mr Sullivan. The report from the fire scene investigator came back yesterday. It was her e-cigarette.’
‘What?’
‘She left it charging in her kitchen overnight and the battery exploded and started the fire. This isn’t the first incident of this. Those things are a menace.’
I was stunned. I remembered Dr Sauvage sitting there, sending plumes of water vapour into the air between us.
‘If you were seeing a therapist, I guess you’ve been under a lot of strain,’ the policewoman said. ‘Seeing connections where there aren’t any.’
I nodded, feeling a mixture of relief, foolishness and confusion.
‘You’re not thinking of doing anything like your friend, are you?’ said DS Coates.
I shook my head dumbly, then got up and walked away.
It was still snowing outside. I stood there for a moment, lost, unable to remember the wa
y home. Eventually, my legs carried me automatically in the right direction. All I could see in my head was Jake’s body, broken and bent on the road beneath the bridge. I have never cried in public before, but hopefully the people who passed me in the bitter weather would have thought it was snow glistening on my cheeks, not tears.
As I entered my flat, I could hear a phone ringing. I had my mobile in my pocket, and this wasn’t the strident tone of the landline. It stopped, then started again a minute later, while I was pouring myself a shot of vodka. I followed the ringing sound into the bedroom. It was coming from the bedside drawer. The phone dropped by the Romanian girl at Jake’s gig. For a moment I couldn’t recall her name. Camelia, that was it. Hurriedly, I opened the drawer and answered the phone before it stopped ringing, noticing there were loads of missed calls listed on the screen. I had turned it off the night I met her because I didn’t want to be disturbed during the night. Weirdly, I didn’t remember switching the phone back on, but it wasn’t the only thing I had no memory of recently.
‘Who’s that?’ It was the voice of a young woman.
‘Is that Camelia? This is Daniel, from the gig.’
She laughed, a low, slightly dirty chuckle. ‘Daniel? So you found my phone? That’s wonderful. I’ve been ringing it for days. I thought it must be lost forever.’
‘I switched it off.’
‘Because you were angry with me? After I kissed you?’ Before I could think of what to say, she said, ‘Anyway, this is great news. My phone is not lost. Where can we meet?’
I glanced towards the window. I really didn’t want to go outside again.
‘Can you wait until tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘No. How about I come to you? I really need it. Where do you live?’
I explained that I was in Islington.
‘That’s great. I’m not far.’
I hesitated, not sure if I wanted her to come round. But I felt bad for turning the phone off so I gave her my address. I had another motive too. She knew who Jake was, had met him, and I wanted to talk about him. Not with someone who knew him well. Not right now. I thought Camelia would be the perfect person. It didn’t sound like she bore a grudge over my rejection of her anymore.