Girl A: an astonishing new crime thriller debut novel from the biggest literary fiction voice of 2021

by Abigail Dean

  ‘Is this the errand boy?’ he said. ‘Oliver’s?’

  ‘Yes. He’s going to dance for us.’

  The second man started to laugh. ‘Our friend Oliver,’ he said. ‘You tell him that we’re looking forward to catching up.’

  Gabriel fled from the room and flipped the lock, the laughter at his back. He crashed down a dim hallway and out into the evening. When he finally phoned Oliver, back in his flat with his hands still shaking, Oliver apologized, and said that those guys could be difficult. No, he shouldn’t have to see them again. On the phone, Oliver was rasping and vague, as if he was just waking up, and Gabriel sensed then that something was waking in him, too, something which he had supposed was gone, but had only ever been sleeping.

  And so it couldn’t last.

  Gabriel had heard rumours of Oliver’s financial predicaments. Oliver often asked Gabriel if the Coulson-Brownes were good for a few thousand more: ‘Make them guilty as hell,’ he said, although Gabriel had known better than to try. Once, when lamenting the state of his Camden flat to Pippa and Kris – the creep of mould behind his bed frame, and the traffic noises outside, and the lonely stream of water which constituted the shower, which meant that you could only ever wash one limb at a time – he expressed his envy for Oliver’s flat on the Thames, and the women glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.

  ‘For all I know,’ Pippa said, ‘Oliver is flat-out broke. It’s all on finance.’

  ‘Count your wages with care,’ Kris said. ‘Seriously, Gabe.’

  All the same, Gabriel was surprised when Oliver arrived at his doorstep at seven o’clock one morning, rolling two TUMI suitcases and smiling broadly.

  ‘Would it be too much,’ Oliver said, ‘for me to crash here, just for a little while?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Gabriel said, and hopped from the threshold and into Oliver’s arms.

  ‘Fucking landlords,’ Oliver said, crushing Gabriel more tightly than he had expected. They retreated back to bed, and a month later, with Oliver’s suits in the wardrobe and his toiletries expanding across the windowsill, Gabriel came to the happy conclusion that Oliver didn’t intend for the little while to end any time soon.

  It was a difficult spell for Oliver’s business. ‘It’s social media,’ Oliver said. ‘People think that they can do it all themselves.’ He had relinquished his office in Aldgate, and worked on a laptop in the corner of Gabriel’s flat. Whenever Gabriel walked past, Oliver appeared to be on YouPorn or Mr Porter, which could, Gabriel appreciated, constitute research. Besides, Oliver’s difficulties bestowed Gabriel’s role in their relationship with a new importance. He was no longer the tag-along, indebted to Oliver for his contacts and charisma. He could support Oliver as Oliver had once supported him.

  And Gabriel could admit it: Oliver needed a lot of support. Oliver, it transpired, was addicted to alcohol and cocaine, and Gabriel was addicted primarily to Oliver; then, as an inevitable accompaniment, to Oliver’s own addictions, at first for Oliver’s approval, and later – as tended to be the case – because he couldn’t stop doing them.

  The days were so long. He woke at eleven a.m., nauseous, and before he opened his eyes he sensed the impending dread of nothing to do until eight. On bad mornings, once he was upright, a plume of blood fell from his nostrils and onto his lap. He and Oliver would greet the day with a few Screwdrivers – ‘Like they do in New York,’ Oliver said – and amble to the pubs on the canal for lunchtime, or else walk down to Regent’s Park and collect a few bottles of wine on their way. Oliver bought cocaine from an old acquaintance in Barnsbury, and when they felt that it was necessary – that it was the only thing that would do the trick – they would meander along the water and up to the estate, shielding their eyes from the glass towers and the wide, bright spaces at King’s Cross. They would wake back in the flat, or in their favourite spot beside the allotment garden, and evening would be upon them. Gabriel didn’t mind this in the summertime, when it was still light outside, but in the winter he was startled by the darkness and his own obliviousness to the time. He missed a number of jobs this way, and he knew that those clients would never work with him and Oliver again.

  In the flat, there was always noise, bearing down on the walls. At any time, there was shouting in the street, sirens, the noise of heels on the pavement. Buses heaved towards the City. Gabriel could see the faces of the passengers on the top deck when they passed, features mutated by graffiti or steam. When he was hungover he sat on the arm of the sofa and watched them, calculating the hours left in the dwindling day. Waiting for it to end.

  The worst thing was that the Rages returned. The first time was in the flat: the doorbell rang while they were sleeping, and a courier greeted Gabriel on the doorstep. ‘Mr Alvin?’ he asked. He was carrying a great selection of parcels – Gabriel had to make two trips up the stairs – which Gabriel and Oliver opened together. They were full of beautiful clothes, printed scarves and soft white shirts and a selection of silk ties, and as Oliver unwrapped a leather jacket, he began to laugh. ‘I remember, I think,’ he said, ‘ordering these when I was fucked.’

  Gabriel couldn’t breathe.

  ‘I thought – what else might my sober self need – but presents?’

  The Rage seized Gabriel so quickly that he had no time to remember how to subdue it. All he could recall was that he was on the floor, his skull bucking against the carpet, watching Oliver’s face above him. Humour had contorted into panic, and Gabriel felt a strange satisfaction spread beneath his fury, which lasted long after the Rage had passed. The parcels were returned.

  Gabriel couldn’t afford to pay the rent and to pay for his and Oliver’s habits, and so he defaulted. There came a point when Oliver had sold his watch; his suits; half-bottles of cologne. Even the white goods from the flat had gone, which hadn’t belonged to them in the first place. The only items of value left were the artefacts from Moor Woods Road.

  Gabriel liked to think that he had resisted Oliver’s suggestion to sell them for many weeks, but it was unlikely to be the case: alcohol made him pliant, easy to twist into this shape or that, and he was drunk all of the fucking time. Oliver had already created an account on a website which specialised in true crime memorabilia. They used a computer in the local library to offer out the items – Oliver’s laptop had been sold, too – and worked on the wording together.

  UNIQUE items from the REAL House of Horrors:

  Your own piece of memorabilia from the Gracie House of Horrors. Choose from:

  Blanket owned by Gabriel Gracie (as seen in this photograph by Isaac Brachmann, nominated for several major awards)

  Diary of Gabriel Gracie (recordings from age 7–8) – approx. 20 pages

  Letter from Delilah Gracie to Gabriel Gracie WHEN CAPTIVE, 2 pages

  Never-seen-before family photographs x5

  Family Bible owned by Charles and Deborah Gracie

  Verification of goods available if required. Discounts negotiable for full set.

  They slept together, their ankles entwined, and in the morning, when Oliver could move, they walked back to the library to check on the bids.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Oliver said, and flung his arms around Gabriel’s shoulders.

  There were some substantial bids for the individual items – a few hundred pounds for the diary, for example – but an anonymous bidder had offered two and a half thousand pounds for the full set. ‘I’ve followed your story with great interest,’ Oliver read, from the accompanying note, ‘and think of you often.’ He snorted, still gleeful. ‘It sounds like you still have your fans.’

  By the time bidding closed, six days later, the items had sold to the same bidder for just over three thousand pounds. Oliver went from the library to his dealer, and Gabriel returned to the flat with a range of envelopes, and unlocked the drawer of his bedside table. This was where he stored the little collection of items, close to where he slept and away from Oliver’s sight. Now they would be preserved in a different house, one that he
wasn’t able to picture. He read his own laboured account of the days at Moor Woods Road, letters tumbling from their lines and landing, one on top of the other, at the bottom of the page. Not a happy day, he had written, and Delilah is very pretty, and Lots of running today. He had never been particularly eloquent, then or now; nobody had taught him, the way that his siblings had taught one another. He found that he was crying, and he tucked the diary into an envelope. Water damage might knock a few hundred off. It was time for the celebration.

  That night he was as drunk as he had ever been. He bought a half-litre of vodka on the way to meet Oliver, and by the time he reached the pub he was smiling and soft. He couldn’t see Oliver at the bar, or at any of the tables, and he walked through to the garden. There was a moment – he had just walked down the steps, and below the line of the afternoon sun – when the whole night came into view before him. Here was Oliver, his arm around a woman Gabriel didn’t know. Here were his eyes, already wild. Here was his smile. Gabriel knew that he would consume whatever fell onto the surfaces before him, and that thoughts of the envelopes on his bed – of anything, very much – would stop here.

  He woke up many hours later, in a bedroom which he didn’t recognize.

  He fumbled for his glasses. The world before his right eye was cracked in three.

  There was a fur blanket on the bed, matted with his sweat, and a cat sitting at the threshold. ‘Hello,’ he said, and the animal turned, and padded away.

  His clothes were on the floor: that was something. It was daytime: that was something else. He followed the cat into an empty hallway. Three doors were closed, but one was parted, and led to a dirty little kitchen. There was a half-eaten birthday cake on the side, and a few dying flies at the window. He drank water from his hands and tried to recall the evening. His mind usually teased him with disembodied memories, which would come into view days – sometimes weeks – later. An impromptu disclosure to a stranger, perhaps, about what his father had done to him, or a demonstration of generosity by Oliver at the bar which ended with his card declined, and Gabriel, feeling sorry for him, stepping in to pay. Today, though – nothing. He heard a shuffle behind one of the closed doors, and felt an urgent, nauseous terror. He hurried to the only door with a latch, and staggered down a dark stairwell and into the street.

  He had a long shadow. It was probably the afternoon. There were Victorian houses – net curtains and chipped white fronts – and nobody around. The street signs said SW2. He didn’t have his wallet or his phone, but his keys were still jammed into his pocket, and he held them like a charm and began the long walk home.

  He walked for nearly three hours, staving off tears and with his tongue dry and swelling in his throat. When he reached the flat in the hot summer dusk he started to cry and then to choke. He crouched against the door, his face turned away from the revellers making their way down to Camden, and tried to think of something to say to Oliver, who might be in any number of moods: furious, because Gabriel had been an embarrassment for the evening; nonchalant, because he was still in his dressing gown, coming to; or, as Gabriel had been picturing it over Lambeth Bridge and all the way up through Westminster, frightened, and quickly relieved: he took Gabriel into his arms and they napped together until it was time to go out again.

  But the flat was quiet.

  There were only three rooms – the bedroom, the bathroom, and the living area with its two rusted hobs – so it wasn’t difficult to see that Oliver wasn’t there. Gone were his clothes from the bedroom rail, and the toiletries which the two of them had started to share, and the last few rations from the kitchen cupboards. Gone, too, were the envelopes which Gabriel had prepared the day before, packed with the items from Moor Woods Road. He felt the first pulse of panic and tried to subdue it. They would be here, somewhere. He looked for them beneath the bed; he opened the oven; he even pulled back the shower curtain and stared haplessly at the blackening bathtub. He was talking to himself, making the sounds that a mother might make to a sick child. On the sofa, he found a note, written on the back of a receipt from Tesco Express: I’m sorry. I love you.

  When the Rage came, he didn’t think about Mandy or the ocean mammals, or about his fucking tepee. He welcomed it like an old friend, the last one remaining, and he set about the absolute destruction of everything that he could reach. He tore up carpet and hammered his fists through plaster. He upended the bed, which they had slept in together. He smashed the solitary window to the street. When the flat was ruined, he took what Oliver had left in the kitchen – there were only scissors and a paring knife; the final insult, perhaps – and started on himself.

  ‘And now,’ I said, ‘he’s back.’

  ‘He came to apologize, Lex. He was in a bad place, then.’

  ‘But it’s a strange coincidence.’ I said. ‘Isn’t it? That he would turn up now – weeks after you were admitted – once he heard about Mother?’

  He rolled his head away from me, across the pillow. ‘You don’t know him,’ he said. ‘You don’t know anything.’

  ‘It’s been in the papers,’ I said. ‘Online. He could have seen it anywhere.’

  ‘We could get better together. That’s what he said. He’s ready to try. And when we are – that money. That money could help us, Lex. We could get a place to stay. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere in the countryside, he said. Just the two of us.’

  ‘This one, Gabe – I think you may have to do this one alone.’

  I took the documents from my bag and left them on his bedside table, so he could see them when he woke up.

  ‘I’ll leave these here,’ I said.

  I waited.

  I said: ‘Think about it.’

  Oliver: waiting against a car, wearing yesterday’s clothes and the smile of somebody who was winning. He walked past me, making for the doors, and I thought of the train journey home; of the postponed burden of doing nothing. There was Delilah, thumping the Bible across the playground.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Hey—’

  He paused, and walked back to me. This close, his body was scrawny, diminished inside his clothes. There was sweat on his forehead and at the ends of his hair. He looked like a nocturnal thing, which could only stand the sunlight for so long.

  ‘I’m Lex. Gabriel’s sister.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said.

  He gave a long, theatrical sigh.

  ‘You all have that same look to you,’ he said. ‘Like some part of you’s still starving.’

  ‘How can you do this?’ I said.

  ‘Do what, now? Visit a troubled friend?’

  He took a few steps away, back towards the hospital. ‘You used him,’ I said. ‘But I can be more specific. Specifically: you defrauded him. You’re defrauding him still.’

  ‘Look,’ Oliver said. ‘If it hadn’t been me – it would just have been somebody else. Gabriel – he always needs somebody.’ He remembered something – the scene of some precise degradation – and chuckled. ‘He’s special like that.’

  ‘He is special. He survived it. He very nearly escaped himself.’

  There was a tremble to my voice. Fury, erupting as tears. Not here. On the train, maybe, in a swaying bathroom, with nobody to see it.

  ‘Prison won’t be so different,’ I said. ‘Do you think that you’ll be special – when the time comes?’

  I took his wrist. That’s how it feels, I thought. Tighter to the flesh than you’d like it. And you – with your clean hands, and your nice teeth, and a propensity for smugness – wouldn’t survive it.

  ‘There’s another interesting thing,’ I said, ‘about court proceedings. Even the small claims are on the public record. Even the ones that aren’t successful. It’s a good way to find people.’

  He gave me a long grin, with a kind of pride to it.

  ‘I can see how you got out,’ he said. He nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘You and me – we could have made some real money together.’

  He rummaged in his inside pocket and conjured
a scrap of paper. The card was warm, with worn corners, but I could make out his name, and the word Agent, in raised print. Then he was past me, and into the hospital. I waited on the tarmac, watching him walk away, and when I looked up to Gabriel’s window, I saw the tired moon of his face, hanging there, watching too.

  On the drive to the station, I wondered what would become of Gabriel, and then, as I often did, how his life would have turned out if Dr K had been assigned to take care of him – or any one of the others – rather than me. Her approach was different. She had acknowledged that from the beginning. She had become famous in her field over the years after our escape: she contributed to Supreme Court cases, and her TED Talk had nearly two million views. She mentioned me, of course, although only ever as Girl A. The lecture was titled ‘The Truth, and How to Tell It’.

  She had discharged me six years ago. July. I graduated from university the week before, with a First. My job at Devlin’s firm was secure. The month had been dappled with sunlight and farewells, and now the rest of the summer sprawled out ahead of me. I would return home, to be with Mum and Dad, and to read in their garden, lying on the trampoline. I travelled to London in the late afternoon, begrudging the heat and the hassle of it; it felt like a final obstacle before weeks of freedom. Mine was the last appointment of the day.

  Dr K’s waiting room was at the bottom of a grand carpeted staircase, and she collected each patient in person. She still wore excellent shoes, and she always made an entrance. This time, she came down the stairs with a bottle of champagne in one hand and glasses in the other, and her arms open. I stood to meet her.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said, holding me. ‘Oh, Lex! Congratulations.’

  Instead of ascending to her office, as we usually did, she led me through a fire door, and down the escape to a little paved garden in the shade of the building. We sat on discarded milk crates, and she popped the cork. ‘I like to think,’ she said, ‘that this is where Karl worked at his painting.’