In Her Shadow

by Mark Edwards

  Jessica still couldn’t remember Izzy ever mentioning Ryan. She’d had several boyfriends between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, and although Jessica could remember some of them coming round, and Isabel telling her to go away so they could have some privacy, she was sure her sister had never mentioned Ryan. Clearly, he hadn’t been important to her.

  ‘After she died I was stuck with this knowledge that I couldn’t do anything with,’ Ryan said. ‘Knowing that . . . someone had killed Izzy . . . It tormented me. I kept an eye on Will for a while . . .’

  ‘Wait. You stalked Will? Back in 2013?’

  ‘Not stalked. Kept an eye on.’

  It wasn’t, she decided, worth arguing with him about the definition.

  He went on. ‘I wanted to see if he would do anything I could use against him, some way I could get him to confess without revealing I’d been in the house that day. But I didn’t get anywhere. And then the weeks and months flew by and I started to believe Will had got away with it. I was so angry. It was so unfair! But there was nothing I could do except let it go. I had a shrine to Izzy at my mum’s house . . .’

  She nodded slowly, not wanting to distract him by letting him know she’d seen it.

  ‘It was my way of keeping her alive. Of remembering her. And it reminded me of that beautiful time I spent in her bedroom, listening to music with her. I think . . .’ His eyes glistened. ‘I think she would have liked it.’

  Jessica was astonished that he couldn’t see that what he’d done was about as creepy as it got. It made her feel like there were bugs on her skin; made her want to get out of this room. But there was still so much she needed him to tell her, and the police ‘guard’ would be here any minute.

  ‘Were you working at Foxgrove at this point?’ she asked. ‘In 2013? I don’t remember seeing you.’

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘No. Not until a year ago. I was at St John’s Primary before then. And I didn’t know your kids went to Foxgrove. I remember seeing you in the playground a few days after I started. It was such a shock. Felix was – what – year four then, so I didn’t have any contact with him, but it still freaked me out, knowing you were there. And . . .’ He swallowed. ‘I knew you had a three-year-old, that she would be starting at Foxgrove soon, and there was a good chance she’d be in my class. I’d seen her with you. She looks so much like Izzy . . . I thought it would be nice to be close to her.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  Ryan didn’t seem to hear her. ‘She’s so like Izzy. I mean, she has your red hair, but it’s her face and smile. Her frown too. She has this way of looking at people as if they’re ridiculous. As soon as Olivia came into my class it was as if I had a piece of Izzy near me every day.’

  He looked up, saw the way she was staring at him.

  ‘Oh. No. I don’t mean . . . There was nothing weird about it . . .’

  Jessica blinked in disbelief. Nothing weird?

  There was a glass of water next to his bed. He took a sip. ‘I didn’t know how much Olivia knew about Izzy; whether you talked about her at home. So I asked her if she had any aunts or uncles and she said, “I had an Auntie Izzy, but she’s dead.” She didn’t seem to know much about her. I swore her to secrecy, and I started to tell her little things, stuff I knew from when Izzy and I were together. About how she had a cat called Oscar, and that you used to call your car Fred. I found that Nirvana song that Izzy and I liked on Spotify and played it to her on my phone. And I told her about your poltergeist.’

  Jessica didn’t respond. Ryan was on a roll now.

  ‘She was fascinated by that. She wanted to know all about Larry. And that . . . that’s when the idea came to me. How I could get a message to you. Because I knew you and your mum believed in that kind of thing. I thought you might be able to persuade the police to look at the case again. I thought if you confronted Will he would confess.’

  This all chimed with what she had already figured out. ‘What made you think I believed in ghosts? That I’d be susceptible?’

  ‘Pete told me. We had a chat about it one night at the RAFA. He told me that, according to your mum, Izzy was always sceptical but you were a believer. That was back in September, just after Olivia started in my class.’

  Bloody Pete.

  ‘And you had to do everything slowly? So I’d be ready to believe her when she finally told me what had happened?’

  Finally he had the good grace to look ashamed. ‘Yes. Except . . . I hadn’t realised how hard it would be, even though I work with four-year-olds every day. I forgot how unpredictable and illogical they can be.’

  Jessica glanced at the door. There was still no sign of the uniformed cop. He or she must have got held up further.

  ‘Olivia seemed to enjoy the game, to think that she was communicating with Auntie Izzy. I told her that she couldn’t tell anyone that I was helping her talk to Auntie Izzy, not yet . . . I said it was very important to keep it a secret, that it was a game that other people wouldn’t understand. I don’t know how much she understood but at first it didn’t seem to be doing her any harm.’

  ‘Except you convinced her that our dog would die if she told anyone.’

  He winced. ‘I’m not proud of that. But I was scared. Her behaviour started to change and I realised she was getting freaked out by what was going on.’

  ‘Not freaked out, Ryan. Disturbed.’

  ‘Yeah. And I stopped straight away, as soon as there was that incident when she was bitten. When Mrs Rose said Olivia was obsessed with death. I thought maybe I’d gone too far. But it was too late then . . . She really believed Auntie Izzy was visiting her, even though I tried to tell her it was just a game. It got out of control . . . but then she did it. She told you Izzy had been pushed. She told you it was Will.’

  Jessica was thrown back to that night. It felt like a fever dream now. A brief period of madness.

  ‘After all my hard work I thought justice was finally going to be done. And when nothing happened, when Pete told me what you’d said to your mum, how you didn’t believe Will was guilty, I snapped. I realised I was going to have to take a more direct approach to get Will to confess.’

  ‘So, what? You were going to expose yourself, admit to being in Isabel’s house?’

  He took another sip of water. ‘That wasn’t part of the plan. I was going to sit Will down, tell him what I’d heard, persuade him that he needed to hand himself in to the police. I was going to tell him how much better he’d feel if he confessed. But he wouldn’t cooperate. He kept denying it and I guess my frustration boiled over. Things got . . . physical.’

  Jessica had to restrain herself from smacking him around the head.

  She glanced at the door again. ‘What about the predictions Olivia made? About Pete getting sick and Pat Shelton dying? The fire at the school?’

  He gave her a blank look. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Ryan.’

  ‘I’m not lying!’

  There was a noise out in the corridor. The cop must be coming. She had to hurry.

  ‘Did you see anyone else with Izzy in the days leading to her death? Apart from Will? Anyone she might have fought with? Who might have meant her harm?’

  ‘No . . . I don’t remember . . .’

  ‘Think!’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He rubbed his forehead, trying to dislodge any memories that might be lurking there. Jessica wanted to shake him. She took a step towards him.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Jessica whirled around. A uniformed policeman stood in the doorway.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be in here.’

  He entered the room, tried to grab hold of Jessica’s arm, but she slipped around him and headed for the door.

  ‘Wait!’ Ryan called. ‘The night before. Izzy was talking to a woman outside where she worked. She looked nervous. I don’t know who she was, but there might be a photo. There’s an envelope . . .’

  Th
e cop came towards her again, but she was too fast. Jessica ran out of the room, ignoring the shouts that followed her down the corridor.

  She hurried out to her car, pulled the Manila envelope out of her bag and started searching through Ryan’s photos. He had written the dates they were taken on the backs and kept them roughly in chronological order. As she sorted through them she saw several pictures of Will going into and coming out of Izzy’s house. Jessica saw herself numerous times too.

  And then she found them – the last photos Ryan had taken of Izzy. She was coming out of Mind+Body, locking the door, with her back to the camera. She was turning her head, as if she’d heard someone.

  Jessica looked at the final photo. There was another woman in the frame, approaching from the right, her arm raised, clearly showing the back of her hand.

  A woman Jessica recognised.

  Chapter 46

  February 2013

  Isabel was locking up after the final session of the evening. All she wanted was to go home, where she would resist having a drink. Since things had got better with Darpak, and as the pain of his betrayal slowly receded, she could get through the evenings without alcohol. Well, most evenings. She had lapsed once or twice. Maybe three times. Possibly four. And not drinking hadn’t helped ease her reliance on sleeping pills, or uppers to get her going in the morning. But that was fine – she could only tackle one addiction at a time.

  She remembered this morning. Darpak had been dressing for work while she blow-dried her hair. He had stopped suddenly, shirt half-buttoned, and sat on the bed with his face in his hands.

  She had turned off the hairdryer. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I nearly screwed it all up, didn’t I?’

  And he had wept. She didn’t go over to him, didn’t try to comfort him. She wanted him to be sorry. She needed to know he appreciated what he had, and what he could have lost. Seeing his contrition, the evidence that he still loved her, gave her hope. People recovered from affairs. They would survive this. She would survive.

  She finished locking the door. Her car was in the garage being serviced, so she was going to have to get a cab home. She was about to call one when someone behind her said, ‘Isabel?’

  She spun round, clutching her chest, and a woman stepped out of the darkness. It was Amber. Gavin Lawson’s assistant.

  ‘Jesus, you made me jump.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Amber wasn’t wearing any make-up and looked paler than when Isabel had last seen her, almost ghostly.

  ‘Could I . . . have a word?’ she said. She seemed nervous. No, more than that. Scared.

  ‘What about?’

  Amber glanced around. ‘I need to talk to you in private.’

  ‘Okay . . . There’s a pub down the road.’

  ‘No. We might be overheard there.’ She nodded at the door. ‘Can we go in here?’

  Curiosity, and the instinctive desire to help someone who was clearly in distress, overrode Isabel’s desire to get home. She led Amber through to the back office.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have anything to drink, do you?’ Amber asked as she sat down.

  Isabel laughed. ‘I . . . Oh, sod it.’ There was a bottle of gin in her desk drawer, which she’d been meaning to tip away all week. She found a couple of plastic cups and poured a drink for both of them. She’d give up boozing tomorrow.

  ‘So . . . is it Gavin?’ Isabel asked. ‘Did he finally push you too far?’

  Amber’s worried silence seemed to confirm this.

  ‘What did he do to you?’

  ‘Not me. He didn’t do anything to me. Well, nothing new . . .’

  Isabel clenched her fists. She had a horrible feeling she knew what Amber was going to say.

  Amber swallowed a mouthful of gin. ‘Nina came back again so Gavin could take the shots for her portfolio. Did she tell you about that?’

  ‘She told me she’d been back to see him. So this was another visit? The second time without me?’

  ‘That’s right. And it was fine at first. I mean, he was his usual self, an overexcited schoolboy, but professional. He didn’t touch her, didn’t try to get her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Not at first. But then—’

  ‘Hang on, when was this?’

  ‘Two nights ago. I’ve been trying to decide what to do about it since. Going over and over it in my head. Thinking about all the stuff I’ve seen him do. The times he’s touched me. And I finally decided . . . enough is enough.’

  Isabel breathed deeply, afraid of what Amber was going to tell her. ‘You said two nights ago.’

  ‘Yeah. It was late. Gavin couldn’t fit her in during the day, and he says he does a lot of his best work after dark anyway.’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘Yeah. Ha. Anyway, he sent everyone else home but I had some work to catch up on so I hung around. I guess . . . well, I wanted to keep an eye on him. Since our conversation, since you refused to take any of Gavin’s shit, I’ve been thinking about it. About his behaviour. All the times I’ve turned a blind eye. You made me feel guilty. Like I was complicit.’

  ‘You shouldn’t think like that, Amber. He’s the one with the power. I understand . . .’

  Amber waved a hand. ‘Let me tell you what happened.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I was in the back office, editing some photos, and Gavin came in looking for a bottle of champagne. They were celebrating, he said.’

  ‘Celebrating what?’

  She shrugged. ‘He never needs a reason. He had some coke too. I mean, he does coke every day, so it’s not like I even raised an eyebrow at that. He went back out and put some music on, turned it up loud. And then I guess I got sucked into my work.’

  Amber stared into her empty glass.

  Isabel refilled it.

  Amber sighed. ‘There was a lull in the music, between tracks, and I heard Nina laugh. Except it sounded like a nervous laugh, you know? And then she said his name. She sounded . . . distressed.’ She met Isabel’s eye. ‘I knew exactly what was going on. It’s happened so many times. Normally I would just put my head down and pretend there was nothing going on. And even though I’d stayed behind to keep an eye on him, I froze. I was afraid of what would happen if I went out. Afraid of what it would lead to.’

  She pushed her hair out of her face. ‘When I went out they were both standing on the platform, against the screen. Nina was in just her underwear and Gavin was naked. He was . . . excited.’

  ‘He had an erection?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She swallowed. ‘He had his Polaroid camera in one hand, held above his head, and he kept pointing at his dick. She was shaking her head, trying to get away from him, but he wouldn’t let her. I saw him grab her wrist, try to pull her hand towards his dick.’ Amber was talking in a rush now, needing to get the words out. ‘Gavin must have heard me coming because he turned round, his fucking dick pointing at me, and he asked me if I wanted to join them. He said something like, “Come on, babe, show her what to do.” I told him to fuck off.’

  Amber told the rest of it. How Gavin had said he and Nina were ‘just having fun’. How they’d taken some ‘smoking-hot’ pictures. How Nina was going to be a star, but she needed to loosen up a bit if she wanted to make it in this industry. He pointed at his penis again and asked Nina if she wanted to help him out with ‘a big problem’. He touched her lips. And then he laughed like it was all a huge joke. He found his trousers, pulled them on, told Nina – who looked terrified and confused – that she should get dressed. Once they had their clothes on he calmed down, acted like nothing had happened. He told Nina that he would sort out her portfolio and send her the pictures for her approval.

  ‘And then we left. I walked Nina down to the exit. She was pretty fucking shaken. Like, actually in shock. I thought she was going to throw up. She kept saying she needed a taxi and she was trying to order one on her phone but her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t do it. It was horrible. In the end I had to take the phone from her
and do it myself.’

  ‘That bastard,’ Isabel said.

  Amber nodded. ‘I told her she should report it, go to the police. I said I’d go with her and confirm I’d witnessed it. I was shaking too because it felt like such a huge decision. Like it could end my career. But I’d seen him do it to too many women.’ She met Isabel’s eye. ‘I should have spoken out sooner.’

  Isabel didn’t say anything. She liked to think she would have acted sooner if she were Amber, but would she really? It took guts to blow the whistle on someone like Gavin. She could hear his mealy-mouthed defence. He hadn’t raped anyone, had he? He hadn’t forced Nina or anyone else to do anything they didn’t want to do. The women knew exactly what kind of bargain they were striking, didn’t they? It was all consensual.

  Men like him had been getting away with this shit since the dawn of time.

  ‘What did Nina say?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘That she was exhausted, that she didn’t want to talk about it. She was freaking out so I thought I’d better leave it. Then the taxi turned up and she went home.’

  Amber took another sip of gin. ‘I’ve tried to call her since but she never picks up. I don’t know what to do. I’ve called in sick the last couple of days and Gavin clearly knows something’s up because he keeps calling me. But I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going back. I’m finally going to strike out on my own.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘But I don’t know what to do about Nina. That’s why I came here. I thought you could—’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Isabel said. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

  Chapter 47

  Although Jessica had met Amber at the Bonfire Night gathering she didn’t have her contact details, and she knew if she asked Nina for them she would have to deflect a barrage of questions. Luckily, Amber was easy to track down. She was on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. She had her own website too, where she showcased her work, and there was an address for her studio in Shoreditch.

  Earlier that morning Amber had tweeted that she was going to be working in her studio all day. If you see me on here, throw things! she wrote. She hadn’t updated since.