Conviction

by Denise Mina

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he owned a house worth millions.’

  ‘Mortgaged to the hilt,’ said Trina. ‘He was trying to sell it. People get desperate. You should be asking about Amila. I’ve got a picture…’

  She found it on her phone. It was a cut-out from a magazine article, a photo of a slim, dark woman in immaculate chef whites, standing in front of the window of an old-fashioned bouchon, gold lettering sweeping across the glass behind her. Over her forearm was the handle of a wide wicker plate, tipped towards the viewer to show off the bread. The bread was the object of interest, both to the photographer and to the woman. She smiled pacifically down at the bread basket. The caption in French read ‘La Dame du Pain’.

  ‘Is that her?’

  ‘Yeah. Something happened to Amila, I don’t know what. She isn’t appealing the case. I don’t know if she’s being forced not to or blackmailed or just getting bad legal advice.’

  I went to the loo and Trina followed me. I knew she wanted to talk. She waited until we were both washing our hands and she caught my eye in the mirror.

  ‘Fin Cohen doesn’t know what you’re doing, does he?’

  He didn’t and I felt bad about that.

  She shook her hands dry. ‘You know what happened to the other girl who came forward in your case?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s why I stayed away.’

  ‘Well you were wrong to. They had to identify her body from her dental records. She shouldn’t have gone into hiding. They were the only people really looking for her. If I was her I’d have gone and stood next to the fucking Queen and shouted it all through a megaphone.’

  We left on good terms, promising to keep in touch. Trina hugged me and whispered that I was a hero. She meant well, but heroes are usually dead. We parted in the street and promised to keep in touch.

  We booked flights for the next day, then we went and found a run-down hotel. It smelled of cabbage. Two rooms were stupidly expensive but I paid for them with my resettlement cash.

  I plugged my phone in to charge and lay across the bed, falling asleep with my shoes and coat on.

  I slept like the dead, like the other girl, and I dreamed of coming apart under the sea and not caring any more.

  32

  PASSPORT CONTROL WAS AT the dark end of a long corridor. I wanted Fin to stand well away from me. I was using Sophie Bukaran’s passport, and if I had been declared dead I might get hauled off. I didn’t want him implicated.

  He knew something was up and didn’t want to take separate lines so I made it a game, like tricking Lizzie into eating broccoli by saying they were trees and she was a giant. Let’s make it a race, I said, make it fun. Fin smiled and said, yeah, but he was humouring me. He didn’t really understand the game.

  He was on the other side of the ribbon, waiting for his window, standing on one leg, scratching his arm, fiddling with his phone. I tried to mimic his insouciance but it came out stiff and odd. I hopped about, scratching at myself, stood up tall, swallowed a lot.

  Fin tried to make a joke across the barrier but I ignored him. He looked a bit hurt but then he was called forward to his window.

  ‘I win!’ he called back to me.

  I shook my head and looked away as if he were a mad stranger. There was only one person in front of me, a white backpacker with blond dreads and an ethnic-print patchwork shirt. He slouched over the counter. The customs man ordered him to step back, sounding fierce and firm. He looked at the hippy’s passport, looked at the hippy, looked at the passport.

  The backpacker made a joke and laughed. The customs man didn’t laugh. He held the backpacker’s eye as he fed the passport into the chip reader and slapped it down on the counter with an eye roll. The backpacker took it and hurried away.

  My turn.

  Damp and breathless, I stepped forward and handed over Sophie Bukaran’s passport. He put the page down on the scanner and looked at me, he looked at the photo. He looked at me. He waited. A light changed below him and he put the passport back on the counter. I lifted it but he tugged it back. Remember to renew next year, madam.

  Thank you.

  Fin was waiting for me on the other side. ‘OK?’

  I nodded. I was trembling.

  We floated through duty-free. Chocolates and handbags. Bright white lights. The shops were beautiful. Everyone moved in an orderly dance, skirting one another with perfect poise.

  My passport worked. I had eight months left on it. I could go anywhere. All over the world I could hear doors swinging open, doors on to beaches and fields and cities. Athens, Paris, Jaipur, New York. New York! My passport worked. I could go anywhere.

  Somehow, we ended up in a shop full of watches. A young woman asked Fin for a selfie. She took it and walked away without saying thank you or goodbye but Fin didn’t even seem to notice.

  ‘People are so rude.’

  He was very calm about the whole thing. ‘They don’t mean to be. They forget that you’re a person. It’s just the deal. I was so young when we got famous, I wouldn’t have consented if I’d known what it would be like but it’s done now. I sold my face for a pittance.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, people are giving their faces away for nothing now.’

  We walked on, revelling in the luxury mall atmosphere.

  ‘They’ve got vegan chocolate,’ said Fin dreamily, looking across to a big fancy shop.

  I followed him into a purple-and-gold shop where you could choose the chocolates individually from a big glass cabinet. It was hard to hang on to the indignation because of the passport. I had never dared to dream of travelling.

  ‘Which one do you want?’

  I pointed vaguely at a small nutty one and watched him catch the server’s eye. My God. I had the option of running again. Not to say I would do that. But the possibility was elating, like finding an air pocket in a car I was drowning in.

  Then we were outside the shop and Fin was eating a very big chocolate he clearly didn’t want. It was the size of a child’s fist. He took a bite, licked his lips and hummed, chewing and chewing and chewing.

  I shoved mine in my mouth and chewed it a bit and swallowed. It was horrible, a sort of oily chocolate, and mine wasn’t even the vegan one.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ he smiled.

  ‘I’m not fussed about chocolate.’

  I was swithering about whether to tell him about the passport, let him share in the joy, but it was a complicated story and I was more practised at not telling it.

  Fin put the rest of his chocolate in his mouth and I suddenly saw a man across the concourse filming us on his phone. I turned away and watched the man’s reflection. He was smirking as he filmed, aware that Fin was a famous anorexic eating a big chocolate. He seemed to think it was funny. I looked at Fin. He knew he was being filmed, he wanted people to see that. He was doing it for the benefit of people he would never meet. People who might get better. I could see from his eyes that it pained him to eat it, that he was incredibly anxious, but he did it anyway. It was a brave performance and it was humbling to witness.

  ‘Fin, I need to come clean about something.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ He was still pretending to enjoy the chocolate but his eyes were brimming.

  The man stopped filming us and moved away.

  ‘My name is Sophie Bukaran–does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I was raped by four footballers in a hotel ten years ago. It was a big case. They were found not guilty.’

  He didn’t know what to say. He watched my lips as if he was waiting for a tasteless punchline.

  ‘Gretchen Teigler owns that football club. After the case ended someone tried to kill me in my house and I ran. Everyone thought I’d been murdered. Several people have died in suspicious house fires. They all stood in Gretchen Teigler’s way.’

  Fin looked as if he might be sick but he managed to mumble, ‘Sophie Bukaran…?’

  ‘That photo of you and me on the steps outside my house, it proves I’m alive. They can�
�t take the chance that I’ll speak out again, not now. That’s what was going on at Skibo.’

  Fin blinked hard. ‘Look, could we go and sit down and you can tell me this again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anna, I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘No, you’re not. We’ll just walk very slowly and I’ll rub your back and tell you the story.’

  33

  IT WAS WARM AND bright in Saint-Martin.

  We stood on the dockside, stiff from the plane and the taxi ride. A breeze was on my cheek, the faint smell of fish and soap mingling on a warm caressing wind. I felt very far away from everything.

  The setting felt hyperreal because I was here twice: in the imagined town from the podcast and the real place, moving through history and imagination and reality. All the Saint-Martins seemed equally matched and clashed and melded in my mind. That was where the prisoners filed on to ships bound for Devil’s Island. There’s the five-star Hotel Toraque. This was the street Violetta and Mark walked down to go and meet their dad. Leon passed just here with his kids, heading off to get beer and Fantas.

  Fin felt it too, but not as much as me. He hadn’t listened to the story as if he was in it, and there was an extra layer of wonder for me because of the passport and the possibilities ahead of me. I was out of the UK for the first time since my mum died. I could go anywhere. Everything felt new and fresh.

  Fin said, ‘Fancy a coffee?’

  I slipped my arm through his. ‘I’m hungry.’

  He said he could probably manage to eat something. He was eating. He wasn’t enjoying it but he was making himself. It was hard to watch him.

  We found a cafe on the busy dock, sat outside and the waiter gave us big menus. I ordered a croque-monsieur and asked if they did vegan food for my friend? The waiter tutted and was generally very irritated by the mention of veganism for some reason. He prodded Fin’s menu. You can have that, that or that. Basically fries and salad. Fin said OK then. The waiter snatched the menus and stomped off as if we had ordered his mother’s eviction.

  ‘Bit annoyed,’ I observed.

  ‘A Frenchman who has tasted vegan cheese?’ suggested Fin.

  We looked around. Everything was stylish, understated and a little bit twee. This is what we saw: the hotel on the dockside was a converted warehouse. It was a squat, three-storey building with a turreted stairwell and Moorish tiles around the door. The rooms had large windows with balconies looking out over the dock.

  My imagined dock was completely wrong. In my mind it was a harbour of straight lines but this was a tear-shaped inlet. In the middle stood a small island, cluttered with modest fishermen’s houses, warehouses, boat sheds, all converted into restaurants and holiday homes. A brick walkway led across to it, cutting the harbour in half.

  Only small craft could dock in the harbour. The tide was out and the boats lolling in the mud were only ten or twenty feet long. The Dana was sixty feet long, too long for the dock and too wide for the narrow harbour entrance.

  We smoked and speculated. Could the Dana have been docked over there? Could it fit there? I had imagined it right here, in the very centre of town, next to the cafes and bars. We scanned for the rooftop restaurant that had overlooked it as it set sail but we couldn’t find that either.

  Fin suggested they might have docked further away and arrived on a smaller boat?

  No, because remember the gangplank was metal and Amila came clattering down it and everyone looked. The Dana must have been here somewhere.

  Fin got his phone and mic out and said he was going to do a quick update about Trina Keany being threatened and Amila’s bakery. I’d been thinking about what Trina said about the other girl.

  ‘I think I should out myself,’ I said. ‘Just say I’m Sophie. The people who are interested will put it together. It might be safer than hiding.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, though I wasn’t.

  Fin fitted the special mic to his phone and we introduced ourselves. I just said I was Sophie Bukaran, I see from Twitter that some of you have heard of me. Then Fin did a straight, off-the-cuff ten-minute update. It was quite impressive to watch. He listened back to it twice.

  When the food arrived he made me take a picture of him eating chips. He posted it without asking me. I didn’t think it was a good idea to identify our location but he said we’d be out of there by tomorrow.

  ‘They have planes and everything, Fin. They’ve got people everywhere.’

  ‘OK.’

  Fin didn’t really believe me when I said we were in danger. I think he thought Skibo was a one-off.

  The reaction on Twitter was immediate: people commenting on the photo and retweeting, expressions of support for me, for Fin, for women, for whatever. Fin sat and ate, watching the numbers scroll up and up.

  ‘Fuck. People know it’s Saint-Martin.’

  ‘We better get out of here.’

  ‘Let’s give ourselves two hours. Loads of tweets about the ghost in the video. Why do people believe that?’

  ‘People are idiots,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘But we should mention it.’

  ‘We should debunk it. I think I know exactly what happened.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mark Parker was playing a joke–’ My phone jangled in my pocket.

  It was a text from Jessica. She was fine and having a nice time. The swimming pool had a tree in it (this done in emojis). They ate (emoji of a pizza). Estelle spewed (sad face).

  I texted back–‘I love you!’ (I put in emoji hearts here because she likes those.) ‘I miss you like crazy! Got time for a chat?’

  She didn’t answer. I don’t know why I asked. She doesn’t even like speaking on the phone to her friends, but I was desperate to hear her little voice, to hear Lizzie’s giggle. Then my phone rang. It was Jess calling and I answered, excited, but heard Hamish. He sounded very angry.

  I didn’t want to speak to Hamish.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in France?’

  How could he know that? I realised he must be following Fin on Twitter, or, more likely, Estelle was following Fin, saw the photo, knew we were together and told Hamish where we were. If Hamish found out about Sophie Bukaran he might use it to get the courts to refuse me visitation.

  ‘Are the girls OK?’

  ‘Anna, answer me. Are you in France?’

  ‘Kind of.’ I don’t know why I felt so guilty.

  ‘I have two things to say to you: do NOT spend all of that money.’

  ‘I’m not.’ But I was.

  ‘It’s for the new flat. When that cash is gone I can’t access any more for six months without incurring a penalty. You’ve always been so frugal and sensible, what the hell is going on?’

  ‘Why did you call me on Jess’s phone?’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘Secondly: how the hell can you be in France? You wouldn’t leave Glasgow for the last three years! And who is Sophie Bukaran? Is she with you?’

  ‘Well, you’re in bloody Portugal, Hamish.’

  He went off on one about the money again. I didn’t shout back though, I didn’t defend myself or counter-accuse. I didn’t think anything could be said that would profit either of us. I listened, imagining Sophie, not Anna, listening to a rant from this mad old stranger. I thought Sophie would have told him to fuck off. I didn’t think she would feel ashamed and cowed the way Anna did.

  ‘Hamish,’ I said in my London accent, ‘I know she’s pregnant.’ And then I hung up.

  I felt nothing but tired. Not being goaded into an argument with Hamish felt like an ending. A real end to the thing. A door closing softly on a shoddy mess.

  Jess’s phone called me again but I knew it was Hamish. What a cheap move, using her phone to make me answer. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have time for his headfuckery right now.

  Fin worked his way through the chips and salad, watching the likes and retweets rack up, like the seconds of our lives pass
ing.

  ‘Has Estelle called you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Have you called her?’

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  She was following him on Twitter. She was talking to Hamish about him. She was probably listening to the podcast, but I think Fin knew that. I think, really, she was his audience for the chocolate-eating and the chips. Maybe that was why he was with me, doing this at all. The whole performance was aimed at her. I couldn’t hate him for it. I pitied him because it was over between Hamish and me, but I didn’t think it was for them.

  I paid and he got up. ‘Come on, let’s go and see if we can find anything.’

  We sauntered casually away from the harbour when what we should have done was run and kept on running.

  34

  THE STREETS WERE PEDESTRIANISED and cobbled, brushed with a layer of sandy dust like the leavings of a hot summer. The locals were dressed for an Arctic winter, in scarves and jumpers and gloves. I was sweating. We walked half a mile to the bar where the Dana’s crew had watched football. Fin wasn’t sure we’d get a friendly reception, he baulked at the door, but I went straight in and ordered a demi beer.

  It was a narrow galley with a yellow Formica bar. A television hung high on the wall at the far end. The barmaid served me and saw Fin loitering outside the door. She waved encouragingly at him to come in. He said, no, no, it was OK. Then she offered him a bowl of peanuts as an inducement, as if he was a shy woodland animal, and we all laughed about it.

  I got him a demi and he came in and drank some.

  ‘You are Fin Cohen. A musician?’

  He said he was. She said her friend was the manager of the Hotel Toraque. His name was Hector and he had texted her to say that Fin Cohen had been spotted in town. He was a crazy fan. She rolled her eyes. A crazy super-fan.

  I tried a few questions but she wasn’t keen to talk about the Dana. She said she only started working here a year ago anyway, came from Warsaw and knew nothing about it. The crew were here all night and that was all she’d heard.

  It felt like a triumph of sorts, getting a reluctant witness to speak, and I tipped her, though it isn’t the custom in France, and she took it because she was Polish and well travelled enough to know I wasn’t trying to be rude.