Then her foot comes down on the loose lace, and she is thrown forward, her breath escaping in a grunt as she lands heavily on her stomach.
She lies there, catching her breath, the pine needles tickling her thighs. If she lies here long enough a blanket of leaves will cover her. Her fingers will become roots, delving into the dark soil. Insects will make nests in her hair. No one will ever find her.
A crack.
Her consciousness sharpens, her hearing becoming hypersensitive.
There is no more rustling in the undergrowth, no whisper of wings. The creatures of the forest are afraid. Clouds scud across the moon, and the silver light winks out.
Another crack. Louder.
She would pray, but her lips won’t move.
The wolf lands on her back.
She is wrenched up and spun around. His body is silhouetted against the glare of the car headlights behind him. She had come such a short distance. How foolish to think she had a chance.
He hauls her onto his shoulder like a dead stag.
‘Please,’ she whimpers, but her voice is drowned by the crash and crack of the undergrowth as he plunges through the trees back to the road.
5. Jody
My family would have loved you. My dad may have been a forces man, but he was never a bully. He respected gentleness; he knew that strength isn’t about muscles and fists, that it comes from inside. He would have seen the strength inside you.
Mum loved him so much she couldn’t go on without him. I’m not angry with her for that. I can understand. I feel that way about you – if you die I won’t want to go on.
Your sister is so hard. The way she talked about … well, about what the doctor said. It was horrible to listen to. Like she doesn’t care about you at all and just wants to get it all over and done with. I won’t let her, though, don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt you, Abe. They’d have to get a special court order before they can do anything like that anyway. I read about it once, a case in America where a woman had a stroke and was in a coma. The husband wanted to turn her machines off but her family didn’t want to. They went with the husband in the end, which makes me scared because we’re not married yet, but also hopeful that they take into account the wishes of the people closest to you. Your sister hasn’t seen you in years but she barely looks at you. She doesn’t love you. I can’t imagine her loving anyone. I’m not surprised she’s on her own, even though she’s really attractive.
She looks so much like you. The same slim face and wide, dark eyes. The same straight dark hair. You could be twins. How did your hearts turn out so different?
I came straight back to your flat after the doctor went away, and just being near the things you’ve touched is making me feel better.
I’ve lain on your bed for hours, gazing at the photograph of the two of us in that bar in the West End, but now I get up and open the wardrobe. As I run my fingers through your clothes the scent of you drifts out, and I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Then I take out one of your cardigans to put on after my shower, a cashmere one, soft as rabbit fur.
I use your shampoo, to keep my hair smelling like yours, and then I clean my teeth with your toothbrush and dry myself with the towel from the heated rail. A single black pubic hair curls from the weave. Yours. Mine are fair.
I put on your T-shirt and cardigan, and when I close my eyes it’s almost like the ghost of you is all around me, embracing me. I wonder if your spirit can move from your body, because of the state you’re in, or whether someone has to be dead for that to happen. Even if you die, Abe, it won’t be the end – I promise. When two spirits like ours meet and forge such a strong and powerful love it can’t just blink out like a light. Something has to remain.
Your flat is so much nicer than mine, and not just because it’s filled with you. It’s so bright and modern, all greys and whites and the type of wood they call ‘blond’. Your window looks down on the grass at the front and the bright colours of the children’s playground. Even the kitchen, which is the same in all the flats, looks nicer, somehow. I think it’s because of how you’ve ‘accessorised’ it. The glass jars of pasta, the silver coffee maker, and the corkscrew that looks like a lady in a dress. It’s Alessi, which I know is expensive, because in the charity shop they keep that sort of stuff in a locked cabinet.
It’s silly but at dinnertime I lay two places and dish out two bowlfuls of pasta, and then I talk to you as if you’re still there.
‘How was work?’
Oh, you know. Tiring.
‘You work too hard.’
They need me. Mrs Evans was so relieved to see me. I don’t think she’d spoken to anyone since my last visit. How was your day?
‘Better now.’ I close my eyes and reach across the table and imagine your hand in mine. I can almost feel it, the light touch of your warm fingers against my palm, and then the table starts to vibrate. I jump so hard my fork clatters off my plate and a blob of tomato sauce spatters the sleeve of your cardigan.
It’s only my phone vibrating before the ringtone kicks in.
For a moment I think it’s going to be you on the other end. But it’s not. It’s your sister.
‘Hello?’ I say, warily, wondering if she’s going to be nasty.
‘Listen, I’m sorry about earlier. I just hate the way these people patronise you.’
‘Yes,’ I murmur, but I don’t really agree. Doctors have always made me feel safe.
‘I’ve been thinking. It looks like I might be hanging around for a bit longer and it’s silly to live out of a hotel room, especially when I’m so far from the hospital. I’d much rather have a bit of space and be able to cook for myself, so I’m going to move into Abe’s flat. The police haven’t returned his belongings yet so I wondered if you had a key I could have.’
My breath catches. She wants to come here?
‘I’m not stepping on your toes, am I? I mean, feel free to come around and collect any stuff you’ve left there.’
‘It’s … not that,’ I stammer. ‘It’s just that …’ My mind goes blank, but eventually I come up with something. ‘I’m not sure the housing association would allow it.’
‘Oh, right. Well, can you give me the number and I’ll talk to them?’
‘Umm … wait a minute.’
I put the phone down on the table and stare at it for a moment, my skin creeping. I could say I’ve lost the number, but she’d be able to find it easily enough. I could give her the wrong one and then stop answering my phone, but she would just come and look for me at the hospital.
In the end I get up and head back to my flat, running in my socks so she can’t hear my footsteps. As I run past Flat Eleven I can feel the spyhole watching me, black as a shark’s eye. Sometimes I think I can sense someone hiding behind the door. Pushing the thought from my mind I go into my flat, find the number on an old letter, and run back.
But the spyhole has given me an idea and, after I read it out to her, I say, ‘I don’t know if you know, Mags, but this place is run by a charity. So as well as care home kids like me, there are other people, with worse conditions. You know, mental issues. I’m used to it, so I know to be careful, but you …’ I tail off meaningfully.
She hesitates a moment, and I think that she might change her mind.
But then she says she’ll call the association and if they say it’s OK, she’ll come by sometime tomorrow morning to pick up the keys. She adds, conversationally, that the police will be popping round to return Abe’s stuff sometime over the next few days, so if I remember anything I haven’t mentioned to them already, that would be my chance to tell them.
I put the phone down and stare at your untouched plate of food, my heart thudding.
What does she mean?
Thursday 10 November
6. Mags
I dial the number Jody gave me and a young man with a heavy Arabic accent answers. After I’ve explained the situation he says he’ll put me through to the charity’s director, Peter Selby. It
rings for a long time before it’s finally picked up, by what sounds like a very old man, very posh, and slightly camp.
When I explain what’s happened he gasps and his voice trembles when he says how sorry he is. For the first time, the clichéd words sound genuine.
‘Did you know Abe?’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘We interview all our prospective tenants, to make sure they’re eligible for our help.’
My interest pricks. ‘And Abe was? Eligible?’
He hesitates. ‘Well, clearly.’ I can hear the surprise in his tone. I’m Abe’s sister. How can I not know this about him?
‘Abe and I haven’t spoken for many years. We had a difficult upbringing. It created a … distance.’ I hate talking about my family.
There’s a pause and then the old man says, ‘The St Jerome’s Foundation offers assistance in the form of subsidised accommodation for minority or vulnerable groups. People who have been let down by society and need a helping hand to raise themselves up again.’ I get the feeling he has parroted this line many times before. If they have charitable status, he must have to reapply each year.
I assume by ‘vulnerable groups’ he’s talking about people with mental health issues.
For the first time it occurs to me that perhaps Abe had some kind of a breakdown when he left home. I managed to avoid one by self-medication with alcohol and narcotics, but only just. Perhaps that’s when his depression began.
‘In that case, you must have seen his medical notes, in order to assess his eligibility, right? Was he clinically depressed back then?’
There’s a long pause, during which I hear a creak, as if he’s sitting in a leather armchair. Unless it’s his bones. Finally he speaks. ‘Abe moved into St Jerome’s ten years ago, when he was very young. We put him in touch with a support group, and organised vocational training that enabled him to embark on his career – a career which he seems to have been eminently suited for. A charming young man. He will be much missed.’
That’s not an answer, but it’s clear it’s all I’m going to get.
With Jody’s words in mind I ask, ‘Are they dangerous?’
‘To whom are you referring?’
‘The people in St Jerome’s. What sort of mental health problems are we talking about?’
He hesitates again before replying and I hear the wheeze of his breath through ancient lungs. ‘Miss Mackenzie, as I’m sure you can understand, I am unable to share confidential information about our residents; suffice to say that in the twenty-seven years this foundation has been in operation, no resident has ever attacked or otherwise harmed another.’
‘There’s always a first time.’
He sighs in irritation. ‘Whatever you may have read in the tabloid press, those suffering with mental health difficulties are far more likely to be a danger to themselves than others. Now, the foundation would be perfectly amenable to your staying at St Jerome’s while your brother recuperates, but it is of course your choice.’
Ignoring his implication that I’m a gullible idiot who believes the mentally ill are all knife-wielding maniacs, I tell him I’d like to move in straightaway. He says the building manager will call to let me know all the various rules and regulations but as I put down the phone I wonder what I’m letting myself in for.
An hour later I check out of the hotel, bumping my wheelie case down the steps, and the doorman hails me a cab. I’ve dressed down – jeans and Converses and a black rain jacket that looks pretty uninspiring but cost six hundred dollars – but as we travel north, moving closer and closer to the little blue pin on my phone map, I’m glad I did. Edgware Road and Regent’s Park are bright and bustling but as we pass through Camden and Chalk Farm the buildings and people become shabbier. Kentish Town is about the last bastion of civilisation before we enter a no man’s land of boarded-up shops and run-down council estates.
Even the sky seems dirtier out here. The high-rises stretch away into brown clouds, their walls leprous with rot, plastic bags whirling around their bases.
My phone rings, giving me the chance to excuse myself from the cabbie’s monologue about his daughter who has just moved to New Zealand.
It’s the building manager, José Ribeiro. He offers to get a spare set of keys cut for me but I tell him I can use Abe’s, so he moves on to the building regs. The first lot are simple enough: no pets, no smoking, no subletting the flat, but what with the traffic noise and his heavy South American accent, it takes several painful minutes for me to understand when the bins should be taken out, how to programme the hot water and the account to pay the rent into. He’s about to say more but I’ve had enough: I tell him I’m losing signal and drop the call.
We’re close now. According to my blue pin this high street we’re crawling down is just around the corner from St Jerome’s. There are a few independent shops and cafés, the obligatory charity shop, an Internet café and a place that promises to unlock any phone. Handwritten signs in grubby windows announce Best Kebab in London! or No Groups of Children. The fruit and vegetables in crates outside are dirtied by traffic but a Greek bakery looks promising, and there’s a Food and Wine for basics.
We’re stuck behind a bus emblazoned with an advert for the local Baptist church. Shiny faces beam out of the grime, their glow of health and happiness out of place here.
All the passers-by seem bent with age or sickness; they shuffle along, dragging wheelie trolleys overflowing with the blue plastic bags favoured by all down-at-heel shops. There are few white faces, and more full-face veils than I have seen outside news footage.
The cabbie has stopped talking about his daughter and, as we wait for an elderly woman to shuffle across a zebra crossing, he taps the wheel impatiently. He seems as tense as I am. Perhaps I should have stayed at the hotel. I will stand out here like a sore thumb. Or perhaps there’s a trendy part – where media types have started to move in and gentrify the place.
We turn into Gordon Terrace, a street of low-rise concrete bunkers with weed-choked front gardens. A teenager lumbers by with a dog so muscular it looks like a screwed fist.
At the end of the terrace is a patch of bumpy waste ground and then I see it. St Jerome’s church, its spire silhouetted against the darkening sky.
Goosebumps trickle down my arms. This will be the first time I’ve been in a church for almost twenty years and, though the original wooden doors have been replaced by a faceless security door, an irrational panic rises in my throat at the thought of passing through it.
The cab stops by the pavement, under a flickering street lamp.
‘Twenty-three fifty, love.’
I hand over the unfamiliar notes and, without waiting for change, I get out. A concrete path crosses an expanse of patchy grass, which seems mainly to be used as a dog toilet. It is hemmed in on all sides by a chain-link fence with buildings pressing close on the other side. On the left-hand side of the path, shadowed by a nearby high-rise, is a playground. The sole occupant, a boy of eight or nine, looks up from his swing.
It’s colder here, much colder than in the city centre, and a gritty wind snatches at my jacket as I trundle the case down the path. My progress is impeded by annoying ridges in the path, like speed bumps or buried tree roots. Along the top of each ridge the tarmac is cracked like a loaf cake, exposing the black glittering crystals beneath. Soil seeps from the tear.
A moment later I am swallowed by the jagged shadow of the church.
It’s constructed of grey brick, in that austere Victorian style designed to intimidate, to make you feel small.
I straighten my back and stare out the two empty arches at the base of the spire, but they gaze impassively out across the shops and tower blocks.
The central section of the building is flanked by a wing either side, with its own small arched windows, the lower of which are covered by security grilles.
From this side, the stained-glass panel above the door is just a sliver of grey, but I feel the eyes of the ghostly figures watch my app
roach, the case rumbling along behind me, announcing my presence.
And then this sense of being watched grows suddenly more powerful and I stop on the path, my heart thudding.
My head snaps around but I’m too late to catch any more than the flutter of a net curtain.
Someone was watching me from the ground-floor window of the left wing.
I stay where I am for a moment, to see if they will return to the window, but the curtain is still, the unlit room beyond giving nothing away.
The trill of my phone makes me jump. It’s PC Derbyshire, asking when she can come and drop off Abe’s belongings. I suggest it might be more appropriate for them to go to Jody but evidently, as his next of kin, I must sign for them.
As I hang up it’s just starting to rain, that ice-cold drizzle Britain specialises in, creeping down the collar of my raincoat, chilling my hands and soaking through my canvas shoes. I pick up the case and run the rest of the way to the door.
The security panel glows green and next to button ten is a label with Abe’s and my surname, written in biro. I buzz Flat Twelve: Currie, and a moment later the door clicks open. It’s heavy and gives a loud creak that reverberates across the open ground as I pass through to a dingy foyer with a table piled with post. It all seems to be takeaway menus and flyers.
I go through the inner door, into darkness.
A glowing button at eye level must be the light switch. I press it and a wall lamp stammers into life.
I am standing at the bottom of the stairwell.
Though the light is too weak to reach past the first landing I can feel the weight of the air above my head. It presses on my ears, setting off a high-pitched whine of tinnitus.
I breathe deeply, half expecting to see a spiderweb crack in the polished concrete, some sign of the calamity that occurred here. But there is nothing. Not a single speck of blood on the banisters. The air smells of dust and the ghost of incense.
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