by Maggie James
Lori opens the top drawer in the dressing table, dips in a hand. In it, she finds her sister’s underwear, but not the bra she bought recently, its peach silkiness matched by the French knickers missing from her body. A perfect example of Jessie’s transition from childish pleasures to adult ones. She closes her eyes, remembering. Her sister’s voice, high-pitched with excitement, drifts back to her.
‘You know that money Mum gave me for my birthday? I’m going to splash out on new underwear. I’m sick of sensible bras, plain knickers.’ She edged closer, the scent of her coconut shampoo wafting into Lori’s nostrils. ‘I’m planning to buy one of those French-style lingerie sets. Dead sexy, it’ll be.’ She laughed, and for a moment the woman-to-be peeked out from behind the teenager.
At the time, Lori ascribed the ‘dead sexy’ to adolescent showing off. Now she wonders. Has she been naïve? Plenty of girls lose their virginity long before they’re sixteen. What’s more, Lori suspects Jessie had been growing into a woman with a high sex drive. She recalls her shock one time when she burst into her sister’s room without knocking. What she encountered before her hasty retreat was Jessie, recumbent on the bed, her face flushed, her pupils dilated. On seeing Lori, she swiftly withdrew her hand from between her legs, embarrassment clouding her eyes.
Lori closes the drawer. She’s becoming convinced Jessie had been seeing someone, hence the new underwear. It wouldn’t have been just for sex, either. Her sister had always craved love, affection, physical closeness. A need that may have got her killed.
‘Hug time!’ shouts a six-year-old Jessie inside Lori’s head, and she can almost feel her sister’s hands clasping the back of her neck. She remembers the way she’d swing her off the floor and spin her around, provoking squeals of delight. They did that until Jessie was eight, while she was still small enough to lift easily.
Then one day Lori refused, pushing her sister away, ignoring the plea in Jessie’s face. Instead, she said, her tone snappish, ‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’
Why had she acted so unkindly? In hindsight, her ugly behaviour simply marked the onset of teenage moodiness. She recalls the way her sister’s expression crumpled with hurt, and shame fills Lori at the memory. Jessie’s face, so still, so pale, on the mortuary gurney, rebukes her, causing something inside to break. She sinks to the floor, heavy with remorse.
‘I should have hugged you, Jessie Bear,’ she sobs. ‘Why was I so cruel?’
The room stays silent, mocking her. Jessie remains within its walls, and yet she’s gone. Lori’s often lurked in the shadow of Jessie’s more outgoing personality; many times Fraser’s marked preference for his youngest daughter has saddened her. None of that changes the fact she adored her little sister. Always has done.
Her mobile rouses her from her grief, its tinny tones sounding from her bedroom. She rushes to retrieve it, praying it’s Ryan, and it is. He doesn’t bother with preliminaries. ‘Lori, sweetheart, I’ve finished work early. Can we get together, so I can hold you? Please?’ he says.
They meet by the lake in St George Park, Lori rushing immediately into Ryan’s embrace. For a long moment she soaks up the relief of having his arms tight around her. He’s oxygen when she’s suffocating, water in her desert, and God, she can’t get enough. With Ryan, she can surrender, let someone else be strong on her behalf.
Eventually the words come, however, her grief flooding forth in a torrent. Precious memories of Jessie tumble from her lips, along with the horror of her death. She barely draws breath until her voice tapers away, exhausted. When she does, Ryan presses a soft kiss against her temple.
‘I’m here for you, Lori,’ he tells her. ‘You know that, right?’
She nods, closing her eyes as she breathes in the comfort he offers. Thank God for this man, she thinks.
In her pocket, her mobile vibrates. When she pulls it out, she sees it’s Aiden who’s calling. Irritation pricks her; she can’t deal with him right now. Her fingers swipe the screen, rejecting the call.
She cries for a very long time against Ryan’s chest, with him whispering soft reassurances into her hair all the while. Then he leads her to a nearby bench and they sit, watching the ducks on the water, the breeze ruffling her blonde curls. All the while neither one of them speaks. Somehow the lack of words comforts her more than anything Ryan can say.
Chapter 4
ALIBI
On the same chilly Friday morning as Lori’s dealing with the police, Spencer pulls his head from the pillow on which it’s lying. He’s at his mate Vinnie’s place, the bolthole he fled to last night. This isn’t the first time he’s used this flat to recover from a bender, so his mate wasn’t surprised when he pulled open the door. Vinnie simply threw a pillow and blanket his way, told him to make himself comfortable and put a bowl on the floor in case he needed to puke. The bowl is now full.
Oh, God. Last night. Jessie’s body, so still, so cold. The fire. His hasty escape. He sits upright, his temples still pounding. A cigarette, that’s what he needs. Spencer fumbles for the packet of Marlboros in his jacket pocket, lights one and draws deeply.
A memory, fuzzy around the edges, tugs at his brain. In it, he’s unzipping his jeans, eager, wanting. Someone – Jessie? – stands before him. Inside his head, the room is floating around him; he’s detached from his body, his life, the entire world. All that matters are his hands, drawing down his zip, the promise of sex to follow. Then blankness rushes in as the memory darts from his grasp. Is it real, or the result of the ketamine?
Wouldn’t be the first time he’s dived into the k-hole. He’s experienced space and distance becoming distorted, when the room he was tripping in constantly changed form. Weird, yet incredible beyond words. So Spencer’s well aware that what appears real on a ketamine trip isn’t always so.
What he does recall, and knows he hasn’t imagined, is stealing the keys to Dana Golden’s rental property. One of her spare sets, his assurance that if sex became likely, he’d have somewhere to take his pick-up. The house is classy, fully furnished, and between tenants. He could pass it off as his place, no problem, and neither Dana nor his sexual partner would ever know. At some point in his drugged and drunken stupor, he must have been conscious enough to get himself there. Spencer’s memory probes further, but finds only blackness until he regained consciousness on the basement floor.
All that effort to wean himself off drugs has been wasted, it seems. Why the hell did he relapse? Throw everything away for the sake of a quick high?
‘You idiot,’ he tells himself. ‘You fucking wanker.’
He has no idea why Jessie was in the house, how she ended up dead. Did he kill her? Is that why he can’t remember, because he’s blanking it out?
Nothing about that scenario feels right, though. He’s bedded enough girls in his time, men being a recent addition to his repertoire. Not Jessie, though. She’s too young, besides which she’s practically his stepsister. He’s never harboured sexual thoughts concerning her. But then he remembers he woke up in the same room as her corpse, and he can’t be certain of anything. What about the blaze he discovered? Did he start it upstairs before passing out in the basement? He has a history with arson, after all.
He knows he has little option other than to lie. Telling the truth doesn’t offer much hope. What can he say? That he’s no recollection of what happened, but somehow he woke up close to the dead body of a girl, her knickers missing, a flex wound around her throat? Not just any girl, but one who’s known to him? That he can’t be sure what’s real, thanks to the hallucinatory effects of ketamine?
That’s guaranteed to end badly.
The problem is, by now he’s probably pissed and puked away any evidence he took ketamine. Meaning he won’t be able to prove the reason for his memory loss. It seems he’s shafted, and not in a good way.
He pulls his mobile from his jacket pocket. Five missed calls, three from Lori, two from his father. The same number of voicemail messages. He turns off his phone without listening to th
em, before dragging the blanket over his head, shutting out the world.
He’s woken hours later by the front door opening. Vinnie, returning from work. His mate walks into the living room, drops his jacket and keys on the table.
‘Christ, man! You still here? You must have had one hell of a booze binge last night.’ He stares at the bowl of puke in disgust. ‘You been asleep the whole day?’
Spencer sits up, rubs sleep from his eyes, stretches his arms. He’s stiff and his neck aches, but his head is clear, thank God.
‘Looks like it.’ He remembers the shit-load of trouble he’s in. ‘Listen, Vinnie, can I crash here another night?’
‘What’s the problem? Why don’t you want to go home?’
Spencer thinks fast. ‘My dad. Always arguing with Dana. Anyway, they’ve had a huge fight. You can cut the atmosphere with a knife. It’s best if I stay away for a while.’
Vinnie shrugs, accepting the lie at face value. ‘Used to get that with my parents. Tell you what: you spring us for an Indian from that new takeaway, and it’s a deal.’
On the sofa later that night, unable to sleep, Spencer reaches a decision. Tomorrow he’ll check the local news headlines and his phone messages. At least then he’ll know the score. Either way, he needs to head home. What he’ll say when he gets there is another matter.
‘Tidy up before you go, you messy bastard,’ Vinnie throws over his shoulder before he leaves to play football the next day. It’s two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, and Spencer is still struggling with the horror of Jessie’s corpse in the basement. He’ll take a shower, check the news and his messages, then return home. As for his alibi, he’s got that down pat. He’ll say he went on a drinking spree, got wasted, ended up at Vinnie’s for a couple of nights. No lie in any of that. No point in mentioning his conviction that ketamine was involved along the way. Let the police do their job, track down Jessie’s killer. Cowardly, but then Spencer has never harboured illusions about how much spine he possesses.
In the shower, he scrubs up: chest, armpits, groin, before sweeping his hands up his back, swiping with soapy fingers at his shoulder blades. He winces at the strange soreness on the left one. Once he’s out of the shower, he peers at the bathroom mirror. What he sees freezes his blood. Four scratches, each a few inches long, blazing red welts across his skin. Marks caused by someone dragging their nails, hard and deep, over his back. Jessie, he thinks. Holy fuck.
You didn’t kill her, he tells himself, but his words lack conviction. How can he be sure?
Once dressed, he checks his phone. Eight messages by now, and the last one from Lori sounds desperate. ‘Where the hell are you? You need to get back here, now. The police want to speak with you.’ Ice forms in Spencer’s gut. Of course the police want to speak with him; isn’t he part of the family? Time to rehearse his story. Spencer thinks fast. If his DNA is found in the rental property – maybe a few skin cells on the mat in the basement – he can explain that. He’s been to the house before with Lori, helping her shift furniture. Of course his DNA is there, his fingerprints too. Vinnie will verify the fact he’s spent the last two nights here, although turning up drunk after the time Jessie died doesn’t swing in his favour. But what about those marks on his shoulder? Spencer runs through possible explanations. Ah, yes. Probably obtained from a boozy fight, lost in his memory’s black hole. Nothing to do with Jessie. No way will his DNA be under her fingernails.
Despite his attempt at bravado, the fear freezing his belly swells into an iceberg, one that’ll sink him if he’s not careful. Because for one question, he has no answer. Why did he wake up close to Jessie’s dead body?
Spencer reaches a new decision. He’ll ask Vinnie if he can stay another night, go home on Sunday. It’s vital he gets every aspect of his cover story straight before facing the police. If he doesn’t, odds are he’ll face arrest, conviction, a lengthy stretch in jail. A prospect that freezes his bones.
Three o’clock on Saturday. Lori’s eager to escape the tension boiling through the house, because if she doesn’t, she’ll crack. Her father returned again this morning, his demeanour towards Jake warily polite. The two men have been circling each other, a pair of wolves establishing their territory. Dana remains closeted in her room, rarely responding to Lori’s knocks, her door a barrier against her daughter. Still no sign of Spencer, although Jake, clearly worried, has spent time driving around looking for his son. Lori’s overheard Lightfoot and Baldwin discussing his failure to return home; she’s aware his behaviour is arousing suspicion. Which bothers her; she likes her skinny, dry-humoured quasi-stepbrother. Like Lori, he’s trained in graphic design and struggling to find work, but whereas she temps at office jobs, Spencer survives through casual bar gigs. She likes rock music, he’s a jazz aficionado; Lori’s passionate about the Impressionists, whereas Spencer prefers his art abstract. Despite their differences, she’s drawn to his air of vulnerability. He’s admitted he harbours regrets about his past, but she likes his refusal to excuse his former mistakes. Take his honesty about his former ketamine dependency. He’s told her he’s clean now, and hoping to build a brighter future for himself.
Good for him, Lori thinks. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? Dana dislikes Spencer, though, meaning her attitude towards him is often blatantly hostile. Not that Spencer interacts much with her anyway. Like Damon Quinn, he’s a man of few words; often he retreats to his room for hours, causing Lori to suspect somewhere in his past he’s buried a load of pain. Which might explain why he never mentions his mother, rarely talks about his childhood; sometimes she’s wondered what a shrink would make of him. Mindful of his boundaries, Lori’s wary about probing too far.
She grabs her phone, types a hasty text to Ryan. Can I see you? Please?
They meet by the lake again in a hurried coming together of kisses, a frenzied embrace. He draws back to gaze into her eyes, his expression concerned. With one hand he cups her cheek, the fingers of the other tracing over her skin.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asks.
Lori shakes her head, tears springing to her eyes. ‘Not great. As you’d expect.’
He nods. ‘I know it doesn’t help, but I’m beyond sorry you’re having to endure this. I can only imagine what you’re going through.’
Lori manages a shaky smile. He pulls her close again, and they walk towards the avenue of plane trees, his arm tight around her. They’ve not gone more than fifty yards, though, when a man accosts them. Small, wiry, his skin pitted with ancient acne scars, his mouth smiling although his eyes don’t mirror the message. He’s dressed in a cheap suit, his shirt open at the neck, revealing dark swirls of chest hair. Lori hates him on sight. In an instant, she’s transformed into prey, this man a wolf.
‘Excuse me,’ he says, ignoring her refusal to make eye contact, turning his back on Ryan. ‘Are you Lori Golden?’
‘No.’ The lie comes automatically. Realisation hits her: Jessie’s death must have made the evening news last night. The implications horrify her. Her family’s grief should remain private, yet she realises that’s impossible. The man’s a media hound who’ll tear her to shreds with his sharp journalistic teeth, his inane questions. Such as: How has your sister’s murder affected the family, Ms Golden? She visualises her fist connecting with his pitted face, and relishes the thought.
Ryan steps in, facing the man square on. ‘Your behaviour’s intrusive. Not to mention insensitive.’
Bastard is clearly the guy’s middle name, seeing how he ignores Ryan. He’s persistent too, flashing his press card Lori’s way. Followed by hollow sympathy. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time?’
Inside Lori’s head, pressure mounts, a steady surge of heat and anger against this man who’s invaded her grief. As she debates how to respond, Ryan steps closer to him, steel in his tone. ‘Get the hell away from us. Or I’ll make you regret it.’ His fists are clenched, ready to punch if necessary. The man inches away, clearly unsure whether to
persist.
Lori’s anger turns to fury. ‘Leave us alone, can’t you? For God’s sake, give us some privacy.’ She’s past caring whether she’s being rude. What an arsehole. With more of his kind certain to follow. Her hand finds Ryan’s, pulls him away. ‘Let’s go.’
They walk along the avenue of plane trees, leaving the press hound in their wake. Lori breathes in deeply, pulling the chilly air into her lungs. Perhaps she’ll stay here forever, perpetually circling the park, her hand clasped in Ryan’s. Anything to avoid her mother’s tear-reddened eyes, her father’s fury. Not to mention her own grief.
Ahead of them, she spots two women she recognises seated on a bench. No way to avoid them without seeming rude. Lori braces herself for their sympathy. As she draws near, plastering a smile on her face, she realises with a shock that neither woman intends to engage with her. They fall silent as she and Ryan approach, then launch into a hurried discussion of the weather. Is this how it’s going to be? Lori wonders. She’s heard of people crossing the road to avoid friends once tragedy strikes, but hasn’t quite believed anyone could be so callous. Must she, rendered leprous by her grief, expect the same treatment? Predatory press dogs, as well as being blanked by those she knows? Tears sting her eyes. Words float back to her on the breeze.
‘They say, don’t they, that most murder victims know their killers?’ Relish permeates the woman’s voice. She clearly enjoys a good murder. ‘Isn’t it often someone in the family?’
‘I reckon her death’s linked to all these arson attacks we’ve had in Bristol’ is the reply. ‘Wasn’t she found in a burning building?’