There’s something familiar about the white ones, the single stems branching out into a knot of blossom.
No one’s outside so I cross the road and approach the pub. The street lamp shining on the window means that while I can’t see in, those inside will be able to see this lone woman approach. I must be quick.
It only takes a moment for my suspicions to be confirmed.
The white flowers are the same as the ones in the jar on my bedside table.
Growing beside them are some yellow pansies and the same kind of cerise blossom I found around by the bins.
Is this the pub Mira mentioned? The one Loran went to after the gym?
Could it have been him who had my brother’s keys?
Him who came in that first night and took away the dying white flowers?
Was he also planning to leave some fresh pink ones? The ones that ended up by the bins so that Mira wouldn’t find them?
Were they a token of love? Or guilt? Or just flowers for the dead?
There’s a burst of laughter from inside. If this is Loran’s pub he could arrive at any time. I turn and start walking quickly, back the way I came.
But coming level with the gym I see there isn’t a bus stop on this side of the road. The closest one is behind me, just past the Mermaid, but now three men are standing outside, lighting up. I will walk further up.
As I cross the side road I notice the burgundy hatchback that was following the bus, parked just down from the corner. The driver is still sitting in the driving seat.
It’s Loran Ahmeti.
Our eyes meet.
I’m halfway across the road now, so I keep walking – perhaps he hasn’t recognised me in my hood – but once I’ve passed out of sight around the corner I quicken my pace.
The hood against my ears muffles the sound, so I pull it down. I’ll be easier to spot but at least I’ll hear any footsteps following me.
But why should he be following me? How can he know what I have discovered? He might just have been heading for gym and stayed in the car to make a phone call, or wrap his hands, or whatever boxers do.
Unless someone at the gym has warned him I was there asking questions.
The sound of a car engine starts up.
I quicken my pace. Glancing behind I see the burgundy nose of the hatchback nudging out of the turning. From the angle I know that it’s not going in the direction of the gym.
He’s coming for me.
But I’m in luck. A van is coming down the main road and he must wait for it to pass before he can pull out.
I run.
Up ahead the road divides into two, but they’re both dead straight. Whichever one I take he will see me. The bus stop is a few hundred metres down the left fork, but there’s no one waiting and the houses that surround it are in darkness. Then I notice a little way down the right-hand fork there is a block of shadow. It must be the entrance to an alleyway. A place to hide.
There’s no time to think of another plan.
With the brief shield of the passing van I sprint across the road and dive down the alley.
Broken bottles crunch under my feet and, as my eyes get used to the gloom, I make out high breeze-block walls that have been liberally graffittied. There’s a faint glow coming from the other end of the tunnel. It must be a short cut linking the left and right forks of the main road. That’s my escape route if he comes this way.
But I can’t hear the engine any more.
I ease along the wall and peer out. There’s no sign of the car. Maybe he wasn’t coming for me at all. Maybe he just went home.
Deciding to wait a bit longer before emerging I retreat into the safety of the darkness, my ears pricked for any sound. A couple of cars go by, none, I think, the hatchback, and I back up further to escape the sweep of their headlights.
I have no idea where I am, or what time it is. I just know I don’t want to be here when the pubs chuck out. I’ll check when the bus is due and then dive out at the very last minute. I take out my phone and tap it into life, casting this small section of the alley in a cold pool of light.
Loran Ahmeti is standing a few feet away from me.
I try to run but he grabs the hood of the parka and yanks me back, throwing me against the wall. His grip on my shoulders is iron, thumbs driving into my clavicles. I scream, but the sound is swallowed by the high walls. No one is coming to help me.
31. Mira
You are back.
I hear the car engine and look out of the window. As you head towards the building you glance up again at Abe’s window.
Is it the sister that you like? She is a fine, handsome woman. Handsome in a European way, like a man almost. She does not wear feminine clothes, or sparkly make-up, or curl her hair into the full waves of the women in magazines, but perhaps this is what you like. Perhaps England has spoiled you for farm girls like me.
When I hear the door go I check my appearance in the black mirror of the oven and am smiling when you walk in.
You do not look at me.
You go straight over to the sofa and open one of your fitness magazines. The knuckles on your right hand are bleeding and there is a cut on your forehead, just below your hairline. I thought you always wore gloves to box. I wonder whether to ask about it, or just to bring you a bowl of warm water and cotton wool. But your jaw is set and your brow is low, so I leave you alone and start slicing tomatoes for supper.
The flat is so silent that I hear when your breathing catches. I wait for you to cough. I will bring you a drink. But you don’t cough. Your breathing shudders, and then you are sobbing.
The pages of the magazine flutter in your shaking hands, making the glossy brown flesh smear.
Drying my hands I go over to you and kneel down. It is difficult now that the bump is so big.
I take your injured hand and am glad when you squeeze it back. Your grip is so tight it hurts, and you look at me with red, hollow eyes. How long have you been crying?
I wonder if she has ended things with you. Or perhaps you ended it. For the baby. For us. I know what it feels like to lose someone you love, and though I should feel jealous, I just feel pity for you.
‘It’s all right,’ I murmur in our language. ‘When the baby comes it will be all right. I promise. We will love him. That is all the love we will need.’
You grip my hand so tightly the bones crunch together and the eyes you turn on mine are beseeching as a child’s.
‘I’m sorry,’ you say. ‘Mira, I’m so sorry.’
When you say my name I start to cry.
32. Mags
If I’d worn my stilettos I might have been in with a chance, but the Converses are too soft to hurt him as I kick out wildly.
The phone light went out when I dropped it and the darkness is filled with my snarling cries and his grunts as he tries to restrain me. I give up on the kicking and start trying to knee him in the groin, my brain spinning through all the ways he might kill me. A slash of broken bottle across my throat, those big hands strangling the life out of me. Or simply kicked and beaten and left to bleed in the darkness.
Then, a miracle. My knee makes contact and he grunts and loosens his grip.
I twist free and bolt for the light of the road, slipping on the remains of old takeaways, the blood rushing so loudly in my ears I can’t even hear if he’s coming after me.
The alley elongates impossibly, the road becoming more distant the faster I run. My thighs burn, my lungs ache, my veins are electric wires of adrenaline.
I’ve almost made it. I can see the bus stop.
Someone there! A stocky skinhead in a bomber jacket. If I scream loud enough he will surely hear me. I open my mouth.
A hand slaps over it and I am wrenched back into the darkness.
As I slam into his body I can feel the slabs of muscle moving against my back. He must be twice my weight, strong enough to lift me off the ground with one arm, until I’m thrashing through air, trying to bite the fingers clamped arou
nd my mouth.
In desperation I jerk back my head. There’s an explosion of pain in my sinuses and a sickening crack. And then I am falling, free. Landing heavily I roll onto my back. Oblivious to the glass and food slime I kick out at him, aiming for any target that might come within range as I scramble crablike towards the road.
But this time he doesn’t try to stop me. He stands back, holding his palms up. In the light from the street lamps I can make out his face more clearly. His lips are moving; he’s saying something I can’t make out over my screams.
Eventually my voice grows hoarse and still he has made no attempt to silence me or murder me. My adrenaline is subsiding, taking with it my last ounce of strength. Dragging myself to the wall I lean there, panting. For a brief moment of silence we just stare at each other.
His face is white. A black line of blood runs from his hairline to the bridge of his nose, but he makes no move to wipe it away. His big, pale hands hang by his side.
Then he speaks.
It takes me a beat to make out the heavily accented words.
‘Will he be OK?’
Slowly, my eyes never leaving his face, I get to my feet, clinging to the wall for support.
‘Abe. Will he live? Please tell me.’
I manage to get my breath under enough control to be able to speak. ‘Didn’t you see what happened?’
He tips his head back and closes his eyes. A single star is visible in the strip of night sky above us.
‘I wait for him here, at Stone’s. He never comes. I get back to the church and all I see is blood. Only … blood.’
His voice breaks.
I wait. After a few moments he lowers his head and crosses his arms over his chest, as if he’s cold. ‘Will he be OK?’
‘No, Loran. He’s going to die.’
He stares at me, his face a wax mask.
‘Hey! What the fuck’s going on?’ The skinhead is standing at the entrance to the alley.
‘It’s all right,’ I manage. ‘I’m fine.’
I want to talk to Loran, to find out more about his relationship with my brother, but before I can stop him he has spun away from me and stumbles into the darkness.
The skinhead runs over and helps me up. He is about to race after Loran, but I manage to stop him, gabbling that I fell, that there was a misunderstanding, that it’s complicated. He doesn’t believe me, but clearly decides it’s safer not to get involved in a domestic and contents himself with walking me to the bus stop.
When the bus finally arrives I barely have the strength to raise my foot to the step. My shoulders hurt where Loran gripped me and I slump into the first seat I come to, letting my head loll against the shuddering window and wondering if I’m going to be sick.
I thought he was going to kill me.
I thought he had tried to kill Abe.
It turns out he just loved him.
33. Mira
You lie with your back to me and I am curled behind you, holding you. You have stopped crying and we lie on the sofa in peaceful silence.
I think about touching you. Perhaps making love will ease your pain. But your body is not my possession: I must wait until you want it.
But our moment of intimacy is passing. I know you sense it too, because your body is gradually stiffening and your breathing becomes lighter.
‘You must be hungry,’ I murmur. ‘I will finish dinner.’
You sit up to allow me to pass, but I can tell you are still heartsick. I sit beside you and take your hand. You look up at me and I know you want to speak. You are ready to confide in me. I am glad. This terrible thing has brought us so much closer.
I squeeze your rough hand and whisper to you in our language, ‘You are a good man and I know you are suffering for what you did. But it’s OK. I am glad. It shows you love me.’
A shadow passes across your face. ‘What?’
‘I know you pushed him.’
‘Who?’
‘Our neighbour. You pushed him down the stairwell.’
You stare at me a moment, then snatch your hand back and shrink away from me. ‘What?’
‘You pushed him because you thought he wanted me.’
You shake your head, your eyes wide with shock.
‘I saw you. It’s all right. I understand. It was the only way you knew how to express your love.’
You jump to your feet. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Don’t worry. I will never tell. It will be our secret. It will bring us closer to—’
He lunges at me, grasping me by the shoulders and shaking me. ‘Shut up!’
‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
‘Can’t you understand? I could never have hurt him!’
He is shaking me so hard my head waggles. ‘Stop. You will hurt the baby!’
‘Fuck the baby!’ he screams in English, loud enough for all the flats to hear. ‘The baby is a lie. It was not made with love! We are nothing to one another, Mira, don’t you see! I married you because it would make it easier to get to the west, where people like me can live without fear. The baby will be nothing too. Hollow. An empty shell.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘I cannot do this any more. I cannot do it to you, or to me.’
‘Stop. Where are you going?’
‘Goodbye. I am sorry.’
‘No! No! Come back!’
He is making for the door but I fly after him, screaming. ‘You cannot leave me! I will not let you!’
You have taken my looks and my spirit and now you will abandon me. My child will be a bastard.
I fling myself onto your back, my arms around your throat. If you want to leave you will have to kill me first.
34. Mags
After I’ve I watched the footage I save it onto the iCloud and eject the disc.
Then I just stare at the black screen. I can’t make sense of anything any more.
Abe was happy; he didn’t want to kill himself.
Loran loved him, he couldn’t have hurt him.
And yet Jody is lying.
And Mira is lying.
Why?
Why?
Once more I stalk out of the flat and cross the landing to Jody’s.
‘Answer the door!’ I hammer it with my fist. ‘You need to tell me what happened, Jody. Because I know you know a whole lot more about this than you’re letting on.’
The flat is silent. The insolent spyhole stares me out. I kick the door, making a sound like a gunshot, and I think I hear a whimper on the other side.
‘I know you’re there,’ I hiss into the gap between the door and the frame. ‘You really don’t want to go up against me in court, Jody. You don’t stand a fucking chance.’
After a few more growled threats I head back to the flat and pour myself a drink, staring moodily down at the playground as I knock it back with grim determination, swiftly followed by two more.
I’m dozing on the sofa when the buzzer sounds. It’s Jody’s social worker, Tabitha. I ignore it, but she won’t go away and eventually I buzz her in. Maybe she’s trying to get through to Jody too. Maybe with her social worker for backup Jody will open up and speak to me.
For a woman of her size she’s very fit because within a minute there’s a sharp rap on my door.
‘Can I come in?’ she says curtly when I open it. Her lips are tight and her black eyes flash.
I move to let her pass and she marches up the hall, swinging her bag, and then turns on me.
‘You need to stop harassing my client.’
‘What?’ I splutter.
‘Jody. You need to leave her alone. You’re making her ill.’
‘You are kidding me, right? The only person doing any harassing around here was her. I just want her to tell the truth about how Abe fell. To go to the police.’
I walk past her to the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge, smacking it open on the worktop, taking a chunk of MDF with me.
‘The truth?’ Tabitha laughs grimly.
‘When no one believes you then it stops being truth and becomes slander. Last time, when she was raped—’
‘She wasn’t raped!’ I cry, slamming the bottle down so that the froth surges up and over the counter. ‘That was made up, the same as everything else!’
‘When she was raped,’ Tabitha goes on, ‘they threatened her with jail. And with all the things that would happen to her there. This is a girl who has been abused as far back as she can remember. What would you do under those circumstances, Miss Mackenzie? Would you agree that you had lied, or just been confused, and go back to trying to live a quiet life where no one bothers you? Or would you put yourself through the horrors of a trial and all that that would rake up? Would you face those boys, with their upstanding families and admiring teachers, across the courtroom and hear yourself branded a liar and a fantasist and worse? The truth costs, Miss Mackenzie. And that cost is too much for people like Jody.’
Her chest heaves.
I am about to say that I don’t give a shit what happened before: this is about my brother, but she has turned away and is riffling through her bag. Hopefully she’s getting her phone to call a cab. There’s no chance of her helping me winkle Jody out of her hiding place now.
She straightens up and slams a blue document file on the table.
‘What’s that?’
‘Proof. People like you need that sort of thing, right? Have a look, and then please tell me how you can live with yourself, bullying that poor girl.’
‘She’s a woman,’ I say. ‘Not a girl. She’s responsible for her actions.’
But Tabitha isn’t listening. Swinging her bag over her shoulder she turns and stalks out of the flat, and a moment later I see her squat black shape hurrying across the waste ground.
I stare at the file, swigging my beer, then I flip it open.
Ten minutes later I’m vomiting in the toilet. The mixture of beer and wine, alongside the medical reports and photographs contained in Tabitha’s file, were too much for my now daily hangover.
Eventually, when the last of the bitter yellow bile is flushed away, I straighten up and wash my face, then I go back to the living room and tuck the papers back into the file.
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