Who is this person staying in Evelyn’s flat?
I feel uneasy being here. I’m just about to leave when I see a plastic folder on the mahogany sideboard. Intrigued, I pick it up, turning it over in my hands. It’s A4-sized and transparent so that I can see the papers inside. I open it, disappointed that it’s nothing more exciting than house brochures. It must belong to Hannah. I rifle through them anyway. And that’s when I see the card. Frowning, I slide it out of the folder. ‘To the One I Love’ is emblazoned on the front, above the backs of two cartoon penguins, their arms wrapped around each other. Who would Hannah be sending cards to? I know I shouldn’t, but I open it up anyway, and everything seems to stop. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears.
I think about you all the time.
Jamie xxx
I stare down at it, my hands trembling. Did Jamie send this to Hannah? Is he in love with her? Surely not! He seemed so sincere, so genuine when I asked him about it. But maybe I’ve pushed him to it, with my lies. The writing isn’t in his usual scrawling hand, but block capitals, small and square and neat. I shove it in the inside pocket of my jacket. Maybe he’d given it to her years ago, when they were together, and she’d held on to it. Although it doesn’t look a decade old. But she could have kept it in a safe place where it didn’t tarnish and yellow with age …
I’m just about to leave the living room when I hear the key in the front door. I freeze, unsure of what to do. I contemplate hiding but know it’s ridiculous. I just have to stand and brazen it out, tell whoever is staying here that I’m a neighbour just checking on the place because I heard a noise. I replace the folder and walk into the hallway.
It’s Hannah. She has her back to me as she closes the front door. When she turns around she starts when she notices me. ‘Libby, what are you doing here?’ She looks harassed but her eyes are cold as she assesses me.
‘I should be asking you the same,’ I say to win time.
She walks towards me, the square heels on her sensible shoes clipping the tiled flooring. ‘I left my folder behind. How did you get in?’
‘I have a spare key.’
‘You can’t just let yourself in here, you know.’
‘I … I heard a noise.’ I wonder whether I should confront her now. But I want to wait until I’ve spoken to Jamie first, given him a chance to explain.
She narrows her eyes at me in disbelief. ‘I told you that Mrs Goodwin’s niece is staying here. The family still own it. You’re trespassing.’ She seems distracted as she hurries into the living room and gathers up her folder. Clutching it close to her chest she retreats back down the hallway. ‘Can you close the door after you?’ she says. ‘I’m late to pick up Felix.’ And then she’s gone, slamming the front door behind her.
I breathe out in relief.
Tapping my denim jacket to make sure I’ve still got the card to show Jamie, I head towards the front door. I’m about to turn the handle when I hear a creak on the stairs.
I freeze. I know somebody is behind me, I sense eyes probing my back, boring into me. I turn slowly and there she is, standing on Evelyn’s staircase. After all these years. She’s changed considerably. Her hair is long and knotty, hanging almost to her waist. She has bags under her eyes and her face is pinched and hard. There is a faded bruise on her cheekbone, near her right eye. For a few seconds everything is quiet. I can hear a neighbour putting the bins out, birds singing and a cat yowls, but it all sounds far away, as though the world is only made up of the two of us.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Karen Fisher,’ she says.
39
Beth
Her mouth is gaping open, her face ashen. She looks like she’s seeing a ghost – a cliché, I know, but in this case it’s true. So she really did think I was dead.
What had made her so sure?
‘B … Beth,’ she stutters. She’s holding on to the radiator for support and there is a sheen of sweat on her top lip. She always was prone to sweating when nervous. I remember the fuss she made over getting that tattoo.
‘Haven’t we got a lot of catching up to do?’ I say, walking down the stairs. She twists around to look frantically behind her, as though calculating her escape. Before she has a chance to move I reach out and grab her upper arm and squeeze it hard enough to leave bruises. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of going anywhere?’
‘I’m … no …’ She is staring at me as though unable to believe that I’m actually here. There is fear in her eyes too. It gives me a surge of energy, of purpose, like an electric charge. I’ve been waiting for this day ever since I saw her photo in the newspaper six weeks ago.
‘Like seeing a ghost, huh?’ I grin, enjoying myself. I steer her into the living room. ‘I think we need to talk, don’t you?’
She opens and closes her mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy but no sound comes out. It actually makes me want to laugh. As always in our relationship, I hold all the power. I’m glad that nothing has changed there.
‘Beth,’ she begins but I shove her hard in the chest so that she falls back onto the sofa. ‘I can explain.’
I sit opposite her, in the chair by the fireplace, underneath Evelyn’s photographs. ‘Good, because I’m listening.’ I cross my legs, the chains on my biker boots chinking. She shoots a glance at them, her face puzzled.
‘Have you … have you been following me?’ she asks.
‘For weeks.’ I sit back, grinning. ‘And yes, it was me that sent you the packages. And I cleared your bank account. It was easy considering we have the same National Insurance number. The same everything really …’
‘Were you in my flat earlier?’
I shrug and pick at a rip in the knee of my jeans. ‘I could have been.’
‘H … how?’ She looks appalled.
‘I have my ways. Some advantages of being with Sean.’
She hesitates, her eyes sweeping over me as though still unable to believe I’m actually sitting in front of her. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘I saw your photograph in the newspaper. Right little hero, aren’t you? Leading all those kids to safety. A shame that you couldn’t do that for me and the other people who died in the hostel.’
She juts out her chin stubbornly. ‘I thought you were dead …’
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. ‘What I want to know is, how did you escape?’
She doesn’t look at me; instead she studies the pattern on Evelyn’s rug. ‘I … I was already out of the hostel.’
‘I knew it,’ I say triumphantly. ‘I knew there was manipulation behind it. Oh I’ve underestimated you, haven’t I? What did you do, Karen?’
She lifts her head. Her eyes are wary. She looks exactly like a trapped animal. Then something changes in her face, her expression hardens and she glowers, baring her teeth. ‘I hated you after what you did with Harry. Did you know that I was pregnant?’
I didn’t, although I suspected, later. She was so pale, so listless in Bangkok. I thought it was because she was lovesick for Harry. ‘I found out from looking at your – or should I say my – medical records.’
‘I didn’t mean for things to end up like they did. I saw an opportunity and I took it.’
I glare at her. She hasn’t changed. Still won’t take responsibility for anything. ‘So that makes everything all right, then? Because you didn’t mean to do it. So tell me, Karen. How did you escape?’
She looks at her hands and I can see she’s suddenly afraid again. ‘I … I put drugs in the Coke you drank. Who knows what they were. I found them in your bag. And then I left you there, knowing you’d be too out of it to follow me.’
‘Drugged me?’ I remember the feelings of wooziness when I woke in the bunk bed to the room filling with smoke. I stand up, my heart banging. ‘So that’s why you were so sure I was dead. Because you thought I was too drugged-up to escape. Well, you obviously didn’t use enough, did you, because I did wake up. And I was rescued.’
She stands up to face me, her hands clenched by her sides, her face red. ‘I don’t know why you’re acting like the fucking victim in all this,’ she spits. ‘They were your drugs. When I found them I realised what you’d done. To me. To Harry back at the party that night. You’re evil, Beth. You ruined everything. I loved him. I loved Harry and you ruined it all. So when you went to the loo I drugged my can of Coke then pretended to fall asleep so you would drink it. And you did. You always were a skank.’
I feel a rush of anger and slap her hard around the face. She gasps and shrinks away from me, clutching her cheek.
‘I loved him too,’ I cry. ‘I loved him too but you took him for yourself. You didn’t give a shit about my feelings. You didn’t even tell me you were seeing him. We were supposed to be friends, Karen. You knew I was running away from an abusive relationship. That I had been through hell. Harry would have been good for me. But you didn’t care about that, did you? You’re a selfish bitch. You pissed off the wrong person, when you fucked off with my passport, my identity and took on my life.’
She splutters, her eyes burning with fury. ‘But I didn’t take your life. You had no life! You were going to give up the opportunity to do your PGCE and I was desperate. What harm would it do? That’s what I thought. You were dead and there was a place on a respected course going to waste.’
‘That’s nice. You thought I was dead and yet you couldn’t wait to fill my shoes. If I had died it would have been your fault, Karen. Your fault!’
She collapses onto the sofa, tears on her cheeks. She looks crumpled and small and I realise with a sudden clarity that I no longer really care about Harry. Or about her. All of this was a distraction, to stop me thinking about Lilianna. What I really should be doing is going home to Spain. To Matteo. To try and sort things out. He phones me every day. I never answer but he leaves pleading messages, asking me to come home to him, to let him know that I’m safe, telling me that he still loves me, that we should be supporting each other through our grief. That we can try again for another baby. That it won’t replace Lilianna, nothing will, but that we can be happy.
But do I deserve to be happy?
I sink onto the chair and light a cigarette. I inhale deeply, my hands shaking. What am I doing? I’m no better than Karen. I’ve done some bloody stupid things, some nasty things. Because I was bitter, jealous, unhappy. I’d spent my life being controlled, by my father, by Sean. And when a lovely man like Matteo comes along I think I don’t deserve him. I’ve been so desperate to hurt her, to punish her, but now that I’m here, now that I’ve ruined her relationship and her career it all feels so … so anti-climactic.
Because it doesn’t stop the pain.
It doesn’t bring my baby back.
‘I’m sorry. For what I did with Harry,’ I say eventually.
Her head shoots up. ‘You are?’ Her mascara has run and her eyes are smudged with black. It looks like she’s been punched in the face.
‘I wasn’t,’ I admit. ‘Not at the time. But afterwards. Yeah, I felt bad about it. I thought you were dead too, you know. I thought you were still in that room. I didn’t realise you’d already done a runner before the fire had even started.’
‘So the house swap? Did you set that up as revenge?’
I take another drag on my cigarette and exhale while shaking my head. ‘No. That was Sean. We were still married, you know. He was a sick bastard …’
She laughs bitterly. ‘Yes, I’m beginning to realise that.’
‘He thought it was me in the paper. He wanted revenge. For leaving him. For running off with his money. So he set the whole thing up and then tried to frighten you and your husband – thinking it was me.’
‘The taxidermy … the bloodied underwear. It was all him?’
‘Taxidermy?’
She nods. ‘Stuffed animals. Dead animals. In the freezer …’
I shudder. ‘They’re my fears. I have a phobia of stuffed animals. I know, it’s weird, but I’m petrified of them. He knew that if it had been me staying at that house, I would have seriously freaked out at seeing them … and I suppose the underwear was a threat. If I’d seen all that I would have realised it was him. That he had found me.’
She brushes her fringe from her eyes. It suits her, that hairstyle. More than it ever suited me. Her cheek is still pink where I’ve slapped her and I feel bad for losing my temper.
‘I can’t believe he went to all that trouble,’ she says. ‘The house had been empty for months. He had a lot of time to work out his plan.’
I put the cigarette out on one of Evelyn’s saucers. ‘You’d be surprised what he was capable of. The things he did when we were together. He was going to kill me, you know. I turned up at your flat, expecting to find you. And he answered the door.’
‘Oh, Beth …’
‘I’m just so tired,’ I say, realising that it’s true. ‘When I saw your photo in the paper I hated you. You had everything that could have been mine. A happy family,’ my eyes go to her stomach, ‘and a baby on the way.’
‘How did you know …?’
‘Evelyn told me.’
Her face pales. ‘You met her?’
‘She was nice to me. She’d seen me hanging around …’
‘Ah.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
She chuckles. ‘I think she thought Jamie had some fancy woman. She must have seen you hanging about and thought he was having an affair. She tried to warn me.’
I swallow. ‘I was with her. When she died.’
‘You were here?’
I nod, blinking back tears at the thought of it. ‘I was just leaving and she had a heart attack. It was so sudden. So quick.’
‘And Sean? Was it you that killed him?’
There is no point in denying it. ‘It was self-defence. I was running from him. He would have killed me. It was me or him.’
‘Oh my God,’ she mutters, her eyes darting around the room. ‘Oh God, Beth. What are you going to do now? Will you go to the police? Will you tell them about Sean?’
I suddenly have no idea.
40
Libby
I should have guessed she was back as soon as I entered Evelyn’s flat. The smell – it’s everywhere. In the air, on her clothes, in her hair, and I suddenly remember where I’ve smelled it before: that room in Koh Lanta. The heat, the sickly smell of incense, the undercurrent of sickness. Beth was always wafting joss sticks around as though she was about to perform a church service.
She sits in the armchair by the fireplace. She looks so vulnerable, even with her tough-looking leather jacket and biker boots. I wonder if she’s suffering from some kind of breakdown. I realise that I don’t actually know much about her, not really. I know her parents died when she was young but that’s all. I remember the photograph that I found upstairs. She lost a baby.
My cheek stings. But I deserve that slap. I deserve everything that she’s done to me.
‘Beth,’ I say gently, ‘I saw the photo. Upstairs. Your baby?’
She turns to me, her eyes sad as she searches my face. ‘I had to hide under the bed when you came into the room.’ She looks exhausted suddenly, as though all the fight has gone out of her. ‘But yes, that’s my baby. Lilianna. There were complications. She died … she was already dead when I gave birth …’ Her voice catches.
‘Oh Beth.’ My hands cradle my stomach. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Tears pour down her cheeks. I’ve never seen her cry. It’s so shocking, so unexpected, that I can only stare at her. She wipes them away as though embarrassed. ‘It’s been hard,’ she manages.
‘I can imagine. I had a miscarriage. I know it’s not the same … but …’
She holds up a hand as she collects herself. ‘Let’s not talk about this. We’re not friends, Karen. Not any more.’
‘I know. I know that.’
She studies the rips in the knees of her jeans, picking at the frayed denim. ‘So how has it been, living as me?’
I laugh, despite myself. ‘Not as easy as you’d think. College was hard. Without a degree I really struggled to pass my PGCE. I had to work bloody hard. I couldn’t learn to drive …’
She looks confused. ‘Why?’
‘Because you already had a licence. How could I go on a driving course when I was already supposed to have passed my test?’
‘Couldn’t you have just done a refresher course or something?’
I laugh. ‘I never thought of that. I got behind the wheel once, but obviously I had no clue how to drive and nearly killed Jamie and me. I haven’t tried since.’
She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes, like she’s not really listening to what I’m saying. ‘What do we do now?’ she asks. ‘Where do we go from here?’
I suddenly have a dreadful thought. ‘Did you poison Ziggy?’
She frowns. ‘Ziggy?’
‘My dog? He died. The vet said he’d been poisoned.’
She looks furious. ‘Of course I didn’t. Yes, I wanted to hurt you, to split you and Jamie up. To make you suffer like I’ve suffered, but I would never hurt an animal.’
I can see by her indignation that she’s telling the truth. My stomach falls. So if she didn’t kill Ziggy, who did? Or was it just a terrible accident?
She stands up and I follow suit, wondering what’s going to happen next. She killed Sean. She’s a killer. Will she hurt me too? Somehow I don’t think so. And I believe she killed Sean in self-defence. I would have done the same, in the circumstances. Kill or be killed. I’ve noticed a change in her in the time we’ve spent together, as though it’s slowly dawned on her that this is all so trivial in the grand scheme of things.
‘What will you do now?’ I say again. ‘You know they’ve arrested someone for Sean’s murder. I’m not sure if anybody’s been charged, but Sean owed a lot of money, apparently. Was in with some dodgy people.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Knowing Sean.’
‘So you can leave. I’m the only one who knows you were ever here and I won’t say anything.’
Last Seen Alive Page 25