The Beloved Girls

by Harriet Evans

  Catherine had her hands in her pockets. She squeezed them, patting her jacket, but of course she had no phone, nothing. Her possessions were in the locker. (You may bring a pen and paper, your purse, a snack [but no tin foil, please.] ) ‘Look Grant, I’m sorry that happened to you. I’ll talk to my husband. He shouldn’t have –’

  ‘I’m enjoying this. So you didn’t know he was going to stick his nose in. But I think you do know who broke into the study and smashed it up.’ He leaned forward. ‘Because I know you, Catherine. I know you’re hiding something. You’re the same as me.’

  Catherine almost laughed: it was so overdramatic, a scene from a TV drama when the newly freed criminal reveals some extra layer of guilt to the unsuspecting lawyer. Grant, she knew, had watched endless police procedurals, fancied himself something of an expert on points of law – frequently he had interrupted her when she was running through some detail with him and Ash.

  But this boy was in jail, and she was free. She said this to herself, twice, flexing her fingers, keeping her breathing steady.

  ‘Rest assured this will be sorted out. I’ll explain it to him.’

  His lips twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. ‘Well, well. What will you explain, though? And who’s Kitty?’

  Catherine said: ‘What? What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions.’ He glanced at the guard, but she didn’t notice. ‘All right. When I came to meet you, that first time. You had a letter on the desk. From someone called Kitty. Writing just like your handwriting.’

  ‘How the hell did you know what my handwriting was like?’

  ‘I like noticing things. So Ash had a note from you, after that old guy got ill. It was on top of all the papers. And I noticed it ’cause your writing is nice.’ He nodded at her. ‘You’ve got very nice handwriting, Catherine. So that first meeting, we came in, and there’s this letter on the desk, and it’s in your handwriting. You snatched it away, as we were sitting down. You snatched it away and shoved it in a drawer. I noticed all of it. It’s my hobby.’ He was pleased with himself, tapping his head. ‘And I thought to myself then, what’s she doing? I picked it out of the drawer, when you went to the toilet.’

  Catherine folded her arms, then wished she hadn’t. ‘Your mum was there, wasn’t she? What did she say about you rifling through my stuff?’

  He shrugged, looking up from under his lashes. ‘Mum lets me do what I like. It was important.’

  Mrs Doyle was a faux-vintage kind of woman: hair pinned up, tight skirt and stilettos, like someone from a Carry On film, and she was certain of two things: one, Grant was a lovely boy, and two, she had been wronged by virtually everyone and everything. Catherine had felt a cold, deep rage towards her, as the trial date grew closer, and any work Catherine and Ash did to get Grant to appear more contrite and vulnerable to the jury was undone by Grant’s mother telling him he just had to be himself and forget about the haters.

  Her son had stabbed someone four times, including once in the eye. He’d left the body down the side passage of the house where the party was. Then he’d gone back to the party for an hour. This was the detail the jury couldn’t get past, Catherine heard afterwards. Privately, she didn’t blame them.

  ‘I’m Kitty,’ she heard herself say. ‘It’s a nickname. I write – I write up notes. About things that happened to me. To my family. It’s helpful, it’s my way of working through things.’ She couldn’t even remember the letter. Had it been left on her desk? Had she written it? ‘Listen, Grant. I know what it’s like to be an outsider. I know what it’s like to be totally alone. Believe me.’ She sat up straight, pushed her short bobbed hair out of her face and cleared her throat. ‘Look, I’ll get my husband to retract the letter. I know it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ And Grant Doyle shifted just slightly in his seat. He smiled. ‘I think you know exactly who did it. You’re hiding something.’ He inhaled, quickly, with a hiss, excited. ‘Ah, yes, mate. I can tell. We’re the same, you and me. I knew it from the moment you got put on my case.’ His eyes moved over her, but his body was utterly still. ‘You’re a liar. You’re lying about everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not.’

  But his smile stretched wider and wider. The room was too hot. Catherine gave him a crisp smile. She pushed the chair back and stood up in one swift movement.

  ‘Ash said you hadn’t been well.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He clicked his fingers. ‘Truth. He said you hurt yourself. Banged your head or something.’

  ‘To repeat: I’m fine. Look, I’m going now, Grant. I’ll check in on the paperwork.’

  He leaned further back in the creaking plastic chair, nodding. ‘You don’t want them to know. You’re scared. Kitty, Kitty. You know why I killed Dan Hammersley?’ Grant said. He put his hands behind his head. ‘Because he thought brute force was what counted. He thought he could bully me, terrorise me, and he’d win. But he never won. I won.’

  Slowly, Catherine said: ‘But you didn’t win. You’re in here. And you used brute force to kill him, Grant.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. I’m the winner, ’cause I’m free. I’m totally free ’cause I’m still here and he’s not and that’s why I won.’ He jerked his thumb behind him at the guard. ‘I have someone to open doors for me, Catherine. You can’t change that. Forgetting even how shit you were at defending me. You deserve to be punished for that, you know.’

  Catherine paused. She knew she ought to write some of this down, to feed the notes of the conversation back to Ash, no matter how difficult.

  But the rage was rising inside her again. And she couldn’t, and wouldn’t. Instead, she leaned over the table towards him. The officer stood up. Catherine raised her hand, as if to say, It’s OK, I promise.

  ‘Grant,’ she said, softly. ‘Do you remember the day the start of the trial was delayed? The judge was ill?’

  He nodded, waggling his fingers at her, like she was dust, brushing her away. ‘So?’

  ‘Good. Do you remember you couldn’t find me? You said I was a stupid bitch for keeping you waiting, do you remember?’

  The couple behind them had run out of conversation. She knew they were listening, the bulky man hunched over his slender wife, the shadow of their outline exaggeratedly cast onto the white wall behind.

  ‘I wouldn’t have used words like that, Catherine.’

  ‘Anyway. Do you remember?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I’d been for a stroll.’ She inhaled, adrenaline coursing through her. ‘Do you know what Dead Man’s Walk is?’

  The prison officer behind her shifted. Catherine glanced at her, saw the flicker of recognition in her face.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ said Grant, but she heard a small intake of breath. ‘I wonder if I can persuade you to tell me though, Catherine.’

  Her voice was still soft. ‘They built it hundreds of years ago, when it was still Newgate Prison. It’s the walk the condemned man takes to the gallows, Grant.’ She cleared her throat, which was tacky with saliva. ‘They built it for murderers. Like you. It’s in the basement of the Old Bailey. So far below everything else it doesn’t get any light.’ She leaned in. ‘There’s seven or eight doors, from the cell to the drop, and each door gets smaller, and smaller. The sign your life is getting smaller and smaller. The last door is tiny, because on the other side of it is the hangman. Because the next door is death. Every trial I have at the Old Bailey I walk that walk. Just to remind me. We’re all going that way; some of us don’t get to choose. It’s taken from us.’ She moved a fraction closer; she could see two blackheads shining on his pale skin. ‘You’re in here now, Grant. So don’t threaten me.’

  He laughed, but she suddenly knew she’d unnerved him. He’s not a criminal mastermind. He’s no one. He knows it.

  ‘I’ll be out one day, though, and I’ll find you. So stop trying to scare me with stories about shrinking doors, Kitty Kitty. Yo
u lost my case. You’re a fucking liar, mate, and you’re bad at your job. You’re hiding something. It doesn’t take a genius to see your husband is trying to protect you. He thinks it’s me, that I’m the danger. But he’s got it wrong, hasn’t he? I’m not the one you need protecting from.’

  Catherine didn’t move for a moment. Then she spread her hands across the table and closed her eyes. When she opened them she was smiling. She spoke so quietly no one else could hear, her voice a thin thread of steel.

  ‘Listen to me. I left someone to die once. I walked away and left her to die, Grant. And no one ever found out. You have no idea what I’ve done, the things I’ve seen.’ She saw his eyes widen, his mouth part; she didn’t think he had ever reacted spontaneously to anything she’d said until then. ‘I’d do it to you, in a heartbeat. And you know, don’t you, they won’t believe you, they’ll believe me. So don’t even think about reporting me, or my family. Do you understand?’

  He clenched his jaw, shrugging. One leg scuffed the plastic coated table leg, like a bored schoolchild.

  ‘I said do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So. Don’t think about me again. I’m not a person in your life now. You have no idea what you’re getting into. Just leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. OK?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I’ll have to get out of here,’ he said, his voice small. ‘You don’t understand. I can’t do it. I can’t stay here.’

  Catherine stood up. ‘Justice.’ She shrugged. She pulled down the front of her jacket, raised her chin and smiled. She didn’t look at him, but she could see, in her peripheral vision, his huddled, small form, frozen for a short time then leaning back in the plastic chair, which creaked, and unclipped itself from its frame.

  This was no one. This was a case which she had lost, a not very pleasant person found guilty of killing another not very pleasant person. He was just a child. She had done her best by him, and it hadn’t been enough, and it was time to move on. Keep on moving on. That was what her father always said, it was what she’d said to herself the day of the Collecting twenty-nine years ago. It was what she lived by.

  ‘I’m ready to go now,’ she said to the guard, who stood up, nodding politely at her.

  Chapter Seven

  The knock on the door was so faint at first she almost didn’t hear it. She was always hearing sounds, real or imagined, kept thinking she saw figures in the periphery of her vision, real or imagined. Probably it wasn’t real. Catherine carried on working.

  Toc, toc, toc

  ‘Hello?’ she said, after a second’s silence. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’ The door opened a crack, and Carys’s head – framed by her short, blonde, still very slightly pink hair – appeared in the blackness of the dark staircase.

  Catherine tried not to let the relief in her face show. ‘It’s so late, darling. Why aren’t you asleep?’

  ‘I woke up.’ Carys came in, slowly, looking around her. ‘I came for a glass of water and I saw your light was on.’

  Catherine looked at her computer. It was 1 a.m. She glanced at her daughter, who was standing awkwardly in the tiny space, holding one arm, shoulder slumped. Plump, dark shadows bloomed under her eyes.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Catherine, moving some box files perched on an old IKEA stool out of the way.

  Carys edged in and sat, glancing around her, almost furtively. She looked at the files on the floor.

  ‘Liability denied . . . Question tariff imports,’ she read.

  ‘My new case.’

  ‘Is it interesting?’

  ‘Not compared to Grant Doyle. But I prefer this kind of work.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh. Well . . . it’s like being a worker bee.’

  ‘You hate bees, Mum.’

  ‘Not all the time. You have to be diligent. Just keep going through the papers. Keep working away, filling your brain with information. Going out and collecting evidence, bringing it back, sorting it into what’s useful, what isn’t.’ She was smiling. ‘You see, I don’t hate them.’

  ‘Mum . . .’ Carys shivered in the chill, pulling at the ragged cuffs of her old woollen cardigan that had been Catherine’s. She chewed on one for a moment. Catherine watched her.

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘Mum, can I ask you about some stuff?’

  ‘Now?’ she said, and then saw her daughter’s face.

  ‘It’s just . . . I can’t sleep, lately, that’s all. Thinking about things.’

  ‘Of course. I promised you, last week, didn’t I?’

  ‘I didn’t know if you meant it.’ Carys tried to make it sound like a joke. ‘You see, you always manage to get out of talking about you and I never noticed till recently. Till . . .’

  Catherine put down her pen, staring at the desk whilst she gave herself a couple of seconds. ‘I’ve let Dad take centre stage. Partly it’s because I love his family, and partly because I don’t really have much of a family.’

  Carys hesitated, pulling at the cuffs of her cardigan again, and Catherine followed her daughter’s eyes as they ranged around the room. All was back in order, nothing out of place save for the box files on the floor. The putty from the mended window hadn’t been painted over yet. It was finger-coloured. There was an imprint from the glazier’s thumb on the bottom of the frame. Carys looked up at her mother, the front lock of her hair falling in her eyes, and smiled, sadly. ‘You’re doing it now, Mum.’

  Catherine stared at her daughter, hungrily. She remembered how she had never smiled when she was a tiny baby. How she’d lie in bed with her, looking at her small, round face with its huge dark eyes, and wonder with the obsessive curiosity of the first-time mother if her daughter was sad. She wasn’t. She was just thoughtful. Always had been. And then baby Tom, holding him and realising how different he was with his unblinking gaze and huge grin, how she’d got her first child wrong and needed to have another one to see it. She wondered suddenly how she’d let it get to this, where any way forward now was going to hurt them.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You never talk about your childhood, Mum. Don’t pretend. You know you don’t.’

  ‘Well, children aren’t interested in old family histories, are they?’

  ‘That’s not true. You think we’ve only just noticed. But we’ve always noticed. We just knew not to ask, that’s all. I don’t know how but we did. And then I realised you wriggle out of it when I do ask. Every time. Who else was a lawyer in your family? I asked you that once. You answered me but it was an answer about how you loved some programme about lawyers in LA when you were little. And so I feel I’ve had an answer but I haven’t.’

  There was silence, and the heavy quiet of the rest of the house seemed to flood into the room. Catherine nodded. She said, simply: ‘I know.’

  ‘Dad always says you just don’t like talking about your family.’

  ‘It’s true.’ Catherine paused, cupped her hands under her chin and looked at her daughter. The tips of her fingers were ice-cold. ‘I don’t talk about it because it wasn’t a very happy childhood. I left home the day of my eighteenth birthday. And I thought I’d never make it, quite often. I thought no one was on my side. My family wasn’t a – a good family.’

  ‘How?’

  She chose her words carefully. ‘How. You know the mums’ race?’

  Carys nodded. This was the story of how Carys, aged seven, had begged her mother to enter the mothers’ race at their school sports day, and by some fluke and a great expending of energy Catherine had won. Walking back across Hampstead Heath, the four of them, Catherine flushed and with her arm flung round Davide for support, holding on to Carys’s hand with her other hand. A little boy called Reuben had watched Carys and her family drawing closer to him. Biting his thumbnail, looking furious, he’d said as they passed: ‘I wish I was in your family.’

  Tom had waited till they ducked down into the woods before he polished an imaginary medal
on his chest. ‘Well, would you believe it,’ he’d said. ‘People want to be like us,’ and his tone of utter bemusement, the sheer unlikeliness of this idea, seemed hilarious to them all.

  But Catherine thought of that little boy every day. She understood him. She had wanted to crouch down in front of him, grip his thin shoulders and say: Listen, I was like you. I wanted it so desperately. And I was wrong. Totally wrong. Don’t worry, little one. You are enough as you are. I promise.

  ‘I really felt for Reuben, after the mums’ race. I was like him. I was always on the edge, looking in.’ She took a deep breath. ‘OK. The summer it all happened, a girl came to stay. Janey Lestrange. She’d lost her father, only four months earlier. Simon. And her mother, Eileen, she was – oh, she was gone. Hopeless.’ Catherine gazed out of the window.

  ‘Is Eileen the one you visit, in the care home?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She nodded at her daughter, with a sad smile. ‘Eileen Lestrange.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you bother with her, Mum.’

  Catherine said gently: ‘She’s Janey’s mother, lovey. She went off to Spain when Jane was a child. She’s got dementia now. Her second husband died and the house wasn’t hers, and her stepchildren aren’t interested, so I found her a place in a care home here and brought her back.’

  ‘Yeah, but I suppose I’m saying why do you need to? She’s not your mum.’

  ‘Look,’ said Catherine. ‘We made a pact, Janey and I. That we’d always take care of each other. So, the summer Janey came to stay, it was also the summer everything was coming to a head. Vanes wasn’t a great place to grow up.’

  ‘Vanes. You said before you couldn’t remember what it was called, Mum.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to have any details about it.’ Catherine screwed her eyes shut. ‘I lied, darling. Because I want to protect you from . . . it all. That’s why. It was wrong. But you’ll find out some day. It’s beautiful, a huge place overlooking the sea, it’s got a pool, space to run around, filled with antiques, but really –’ She breathed in. ‘It was rotten. Had been for years. Charles, my father, wasn’t a good person. My poor mother – well, she never stood a chance.’