Keep Your Friends Close

by June Taylor

  Whatever the implications.

  Going to the police would inevitably mean prison at some point. As well as her stepdad’s murder, there was a strong possibility that she could be charged for Will’s too when it came to it. Thanks to Mel. Without any hard evidence to prove it was Mel who had plied him with drink and pushed him into the river, there was very little hope. They might also accuse her of killing Louie. She still didn’t know the whereabouts of that knife.

  The Midland had told her that Louie was on unpaid leave for another five days when she had called them. She knew they would be the ones to raise the alarm when Louie didn’t show up for work. At least this gave Karin some time to think about how to go about things. Ultimately, though, she had made her decision. She just wanted the truth to be out there now. It was up to the police and the justice system to decide what to do with it.

  Will deserved better. Will had always deserved better.

  Karin caught the bus back to Ashby Road to prepare. The charity was allowing her to stay there temporarily, in Will’s room. They had very kindly said that she could stay for as long as she needed, until she found somewhere to rent. There seemed little point in telling them that she wasn’t even bothering to look because her next home would be in Her Majesty’s prison.

  She packed a bag for her trip.

  It was time to say a final goodbye to her mother.

  52

  Karin

  She took the train to Fort William and then a bus to somewhere nearby. It was four and a half miles from civilization when she got off at the other end, but the walk would do her good. There would be no lift. Her mother wasn’t aware that she was coming.

  The day was warm, despite evidence of rainfall.

  As well as a desire to say goodbye one final time, if her mother would allow that, Karin also wanted to give her some warning that the police would soon be on their way. Although she couldn’t say when, they would be coming to ask questions about her daughter.

  It wasn’t Karin’s intention to try to change her mind. She knew Birgitta well enough to know that would be pointless in any case. But there was an additional purpose to her visit nonetheless. She wanted her to be aware that something positive had eventually come of her life, however brief it was in the end. Inevitably, once the scandal hit the tabloids, the headlines would change from good to bad but this still didn’t take away from Karin’s success. Not only had she got the Ashby Road project off the ground, with more schemes to follow, she had also become the voice of her generation. And if her mother needed proof she could show her the clip from the launch.

  Afterwards, Birgitta could do whatever was necessary.

  She could turn Karin in, there and then, if she wanted to; Karin wouldn’t blame her for that. In fact a part of her wanted punishment now. Not so much for her stepdad, although she certainly wouldn’t deny kicking the steps from under him, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that, and she lived her punishment every day for this crime. It was punishment for Will that she was really seeking.

  Because she could have saved him.

  Karin knew that Will didn’t really care for Mel, just like she knew Mel didn’t care for Will either. Yet she had chosen to ignore that because it suited her. She was having too good a time with Aaron. Letting Will down was one of the worst things she had ever done.

  That, and running away from Louie.

  Most people were surprised when they saw it. They expected the Swedish queen of design to have an ultra-modern self-build of never-ending glass and wide-open spaces, devoid of interior walls, minimalist décor. Instead they found a seventeenth-century Scottish castle, crawling with old ivy over three floors, a labyrinth of corridors, sweeping staircases and grand hallways; rooms with ornate ceilings and decorative plasterwork. All lovingly restored, but the only thing to say ‘modern design’ was the kitchen, a vast and bold statement for the Svendsen brand.

  This was not home. Karin never once felt that she belonged here.

  Birgitta was out in the garden. Karin detected movement around the pergola, and then caught a glimpse. Keeping herself concealed, hardly daring to breathe, the first thing she noticed about her mother was how much she had aged in such a relatively short time. Her hair was still long, but almost white now instead of her trademark blonde. The way she was reaching up to trim the roses wasn’t quite as agile either, not as Karin remembered her movements to be, and she kept rubbing her lower back in between snips, probably not even aware she was doing it.

  What stood out most was her loneliness.

  And that was Karin’s fault.

  Hiding away behind this lofty hedge gave Karin the opportunity to get used to seeing her again, familiarize herself with her surroundings.

  The log cabin, her log cabin, was still standing. Positioned down at the bottom nearest the stream in a perfectly peaceful spot. It looked much the same, on the outside at least. It had been unveiled to Karin on her sixth birthday, and she wondered if Birgitta still went in it these days. She had half expected it would have been torn down as soon as the police had finished in there, the body stretchered out covered in a white sheet. So perhaps it was kept as a sort of shrine to him, with flowers and photographs. Or was it the crime scene that Birgitta wanted to preserve, his execution site left undisturbed after all this time? The dusty stepladders lying on their side; the rope curled up on the floor like an empty snakeskin, noosed at the end; the beam, splintered and grooved.

  ‘Mamma,’ she said softly, daring to get a bit closer. Then, ‘Mamma,’ louder that time because she hadn’t heard her over the clicking of the secateurs.

  Her mother turned. Stern as ever. Lips tightening.

  There were more lines on her face, which Karin thought actually suited her.

  ‘I’ve, er – I’ve come to tell you something.’

  When her mother’s expression turned to shock, Karin realized that she may have misinterpreted.

  ‘Oh, I’m not pregnant or anything. It’s not that.’ But this wasn’t part of her script and now she was thrown. Disarmed. The underdog again. For a moment it did get Karin wondering what her mother’s reaction would have been, if this had been the news she was bringing her.

  Silence.

  The big freeze had begun. The power of ice, from the top down. Karin shivered, rubbing her arms. It was a feeling she had experienced all through her childhood, and the last time she felt it was that last time they had seen each other. When Karin was seventeen. The terrible incident. Legs swinging. Her mother’s screams.

  ‘Erm.’ Karin was left hanging.

  Hanging, don’t say that.

  ‘Do we go inside, or should I just tell you here?’

  She didn’t want to go against protocol. Not now, not ever.

  Birgitta pointed to the house, waving the secateurs. Karin was wishing she hadn’t given her the option now because it was always better to be outdoors. She remembered that too late. Despite its size, the house felt like a prison. Cold, even in summer.

  They removed their shoes in the entrance hall in the continuing silence. Karin followed her through to the kitchen where Birgitta began pouring a glass of elderflower lemonade from the fridge. Homemade fläderblomssaft. Tears pooled in Karin’s eyes when she took it from her mother’s hand, not daring to blink in case the watery film should burst into a tear and betray her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted this. It used to be a frequent daydream of hers at boarding school, craving this one small act of kindness, the taste of the lemonade representing a kind of sweet normality.

  ‘How have you been, Mamma?’ she asked, not wanting to dwell on that childhood memory, for fear of it knocking her even further off course. She immediately qualified that with, ‘Am I allowed to ask?’

  The frown line on her mother’s face was carved deeper into her forehead. Karin’s was the same, a genetic thing.

  ‘I work. I sleep. I do the garden,’ she replied.

  So she was lonely.

  Do you ever think of me, Mam
ma?

  Despite this being their last ever goodbye, Karin still didn’t dare ask that question, and even though she detected a certain fragility in Birgitta now, she still remained wary of her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘About what happened.’

  ‘Is that what you came here to tell me?’

  ‘No.’

  Couldn’t they just exchange a few pleasantries first? How have you been? What have you been up to? Enjoy sipping elderflower lemonade again, swapping stories about the past five years. That was never the way her mother did things though. Everything was dealt with in a businesslike fashion. Even life. Even a child’s life.

  ‘I already said I was sorry,’ said Karin.

  How many more times could she apologize for her mistake? Not that sorry would ever bring him back.

  ‘No, I actually came to warn you about something. You er – you might be getting a visit from the police. Fairly soon. I’m in trouble, but it wasn’t my fault—’

  ‘It never is, is it?’

  Karin rolled her eyes. She was on the verge of spilling out the whole story. Being blackmailed by someone who ended up being her stepsister, who claimed to have met her mother, who went to her stepdad’s funeral, who had actually set foot in this very house, who came to ask Birgitta for money.

  But this wasn’t what Karin had come to say. She wanted to take responsibility, and Mel was irrelevant to that.

  ‘It’s a long story but someone close to me got killed. Now I want to put things right. He was my friend and I owe it to him.’ Her mother raised an eyebrow but Karin wasn’t going to be discouraged. ‘Ever since I turned twenty-two and got that money, well it’s seemed like my life – which had been going really well just before that – started to fall apart. I’m grateful for the money, Mamma, I truly am. But I think it changed the way people saw me.’

  Karin spoke quickly, expecting to be interrupted at any moment. ‘Get to the point or keep quiet,’ her mother would always say. Not just to Karin, she said it to her dad too, and maybe others, people who worked for her. Maybe even her stepdad. When Karin was really young she was afraid to open her mouth at all.

  Eyes like two ball bearings. Hard, shiny steel. Beautiful, though. Almost silver. Did her mother really want to listen to her now? It seemed like she did.

  She told her about leaving school early, that she was sorry for wasting the fees and never getting her International Baccalaureate like she was meant to. She told her about going to live in Morecambe, although missed out the bit that she had actually gone there to end it all. Then recounted meeting someone in Morecambe, who helped her find work at The Midland hotel, who then became a good friend. No mention of them living together, but she told her about fleeing to Leeds when Morecambe didn’t quite work out, including the fact that she had lived on the streets and then was rescued. The name Mel wasn’t used, in case it rang any bells. Karin didn’t want her mother to know that she no longer had the money, even though she would find out soon enough. She would read it in the papers probably. But for now that wasn’t what this was about.

  ‘You lived on the streets, Karin?’

  ‘Oh. Erm yes, I had to.’ She couldn’t decide whether her mother was concerned or merely horrified. ‘I didn’t have any money. But that’s where I met Will, my friend who got killed. Anyway look, Mamma. The reason I’m here now is to warn you that when the police come it’s likely they’ll accuse me of crimes I haven’t committed. And no matter what happens, I want you to know that I am innocent.’

  Birgitta threw her head to one side with her steely stare. Karin held up her hands. ‘And before you say it, I’m not referring to my stepdad. I fully accept that what I did there was wrong, and I wish I hadn’t kicked those steps away. However, I did, and I hate myself for it every single day. Just like you said I would in that letter you sent me.’

  They needed a moment to deal with the pain this still caused them both.

  Karin couldn’t let the pause go on for too long though, or she would be thrown off course again, interrupted or silenced completely. She was also crying and about to rupture, but she managed to pick up her thread. ‘I could let the person who killed my friend get away with it, because it would make my life so much easier. But Will was homeless and he didn’t deserve to die. Plus the reason he was killed was down to me.’

  Karin found a tissue buried in the pocket of her jeans. Her sobs were so violent it felt like her chest was trying to strangle her. She had to get the last part out before she lost the power of speech altogether. ‘I just wanted to warn you and to-to say goodbye properly. Because we never did say goodbye. And I’ve missed you, Mamma.’

  Those words came from a dark, neglected place and there would never be a chance to say them again.

  No reaction from her mother.

  Karin managed to compose herself. ‘Before I go, though, I’d like to prove to you that I actually managed to achieve something good in my life.’

  They moved across to the table to use Birgitta’s laptop.

  The table curved out of the wall like a river. Karin had never liked it, she was forever being told not to spill anything on it. She found the link to the news clip and set it playing, standing back to observe her mother’s face. As usual, it gave nothing away. Then maybe a slight flicker at the point where Karin was ranting about the Government’s ignoring the issue of homelessness, the tragedy of food banks, and the presenter saying that she was the voice of a generation. It finished on a blurry freeze-frame of Karin. She got rid of the link to stop it playing again.

  ‘I was in all the newspapers too, and everywhere on the internet. People actually listened to what I had to say for once.’

  It wasn’t meant to sound like a dig but Karin immediately realized that’s how it sounded.

  ‘I listened to you, Karin. And a man took his life because of it.’

  ‘That’s not true. I never said he did anything.’

  ‘You implied it, and that was enough. You were not a child, you were seventeen. We’ve been through this.’

  ‘Exactly. I was a depressed, suicidal teenager who’d just lost her dad.’

  ‘That’s no excuse.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But my loneliness was like a black hole, Mamma,’ she wailed. ‘Especially after my dad died. And you never once reached inside to pull me out. Did you? If only you’d bothered to read my letter, the one with the truth in it. You see, he told me something before he – before I – when he had the rope around his neck. He told me that he was ashamed for neglecting his family for all of those years. He told me he was ashamed because-because my dad had had a heart attack right in front of him and he just let him die.’

  Karin swiped the tears away with her fingers but no sooner had she done that when more were dripping off her chin. She leaned into her mother’s chest because all she needed, then and now, was a memory to take with her. Back to school. To prison. As she sobbed inconsolably, a hand was brushing wet strands off her cheek, a swaying motion gently pulling her in closer.

  The smell of Birgitta. Avocado. Lavender.

  ‘All this charity stuff is for your conscience, isn’t it?’

  She straightened up again because her mother’s body was rigid. As a glacier. She hadn’t melted, not one bit, not even a trickle. There was no memory for Karin to take away with her. Only this memory, frosted over and cruel.

  ‘I swear that’s what he said to me. He admitted it. I know you thought it was because of me accusing him of some inappropriate behaviour. But it wasn’t that at all. He knew I was a confused teenager grieving for my dad, and he said that he forgave me for saying those things. I could never forgive him though, not after what he’d just told me. How could he watch my dad die and do nothing to help him? How could he do that? That’s why I kicked the steps away, Mamma. Because I was angry. Maybe he even wanted me to do it. Maybe he was too afraid to do it himself. I don’t know, but that is the truth.’

  Karin stood up, reaching for Birgitta’s sketchpad at the end of
the table. She scribbled something on it.

  If you ever need me, Mamma, here’s my number. Goodbye. And I am truly sorry. You can tell the police everything when they contact you. I don’t think it will be long now.

  On her way out, in the hallway, there was a photograph in a silver frame. Karin, in her school uniform, probably about twelve years old, with bushy red hair. Maybe it was the same photograph that Mel had seen.

  She turned it face down and left.

  53

  Karin

  The morning air was cool due to the thick blanket of cloud hanging over the day. Karin hadn’t seen the forecast but it was of no consequence whether the sun was going to burn through later or not. Or turn to snow for that matter. From now on the subtleties of the British weather were irrelevant. Take an umbrella, don’t take an umbrella. Coat or no coat. Sandals or shoes. Shades or no shades. None of it mattered because sooner or later she was going to prison.

  She had decided to walk to Weetwood rather than taking the bus. The police station was probably a good three miles up Otley Road but she had no idea what she would say when she got there, so needed the time to think.

  Tell them what exactly? Where to start?

  The money that had landed in her account this morning was also a distraction. It was clearly from her mother, but quite why she had put it there was baffling. It wasn’t as though Karin hadn’t told her that the money she got for her birthday was all gone. So why transfer more? A hundred thousand pounds was a considerable amount to give her, on top of what she had already received. But should she thank her for it? Would Birgitta want that?

  Or leave it and do nothing.

  The dilemma was making Karin’s head pound, and if this was to be her last walk of freedom she ought to at least try and enjoy it. So she turned her attention to the summer blooms straining their colourful necks above stone walls in neat gardens as she passed by. She felt sorry for those poking through weeds in the untidy ones, at the unfairness of their neglect. Birds fluttered in trees that she had never noticed before, and a dog wagged its tail up ahead, allowing a child to stroke it because there was a treat to be had if it did. Children playing out in the school playground, squealing and larking about, like Karin had never experienced.