Cry for Help (13 page)

'You turning me down?'

'I didn't say that, did I?' She smiled at me; my stomach fluttered a little. Then she turned back and grimaced at the sink. 'Just don't expect me to do the washing up, okay?'

'Not at all.'

Beneath the cleaning fluid, the whole house smelled of dust, even though we'd opened all the windows. Linda had done a good job of cleaning the basics, but once we'd delved below the surface and started moving stuff, it had been like unleashing a curse from an Egyptian tomb. A yellow skip waited at the bottom curve of the drive; we'd only been here a few hours, and we already had enough rubbish to half-fill it. Bin bags full of musty clothes lined the hallway all the way to the front room, from where I could hear Rob pulling books off shelves and dropping them into clumping piles.

The only room we'd not yet touched was Owen's. I was gearing myself up for that.

'Oh, this won't come off,' Sarah said.

'Don't worry. Here: I need to wash my hands.'

She stripped off the gloves, then moved aside to let me clean the tack from my fingers. As I rinsed them beneath the foam, she stared dubiously into the pantry.

'God. It's awful in here.'

'Awful, but empty. I'll give it a clean in a minute.'

I closed the pantry door over, and was about to take the cardboard box into the hallway when I saw what was on the door.

The husk of a drawing I'd done as a child. My mother had sellotaped it to the wood and left it there, the corners now stained and curled and crisp. Four scribbled figures stood on a green line at the bottom, next to a red house half their height. Blue was smeared across the top, in that universal way that children conceive of and draw the sky.

Sarah saw me looking and poked one of the corners back to get a better look.

'Is this one of your pieces?'

'I imagine it's my earliest surviving work.'

'It shows such promise. You should have been an artist.'

I smiled but it felt a little forced. I didn't know what made me uncomfortable about the picture. Was it that my mother must have looked at it every day, through all those strained years when we barely spoke? Or was it the scene I'd drawn - the four of us together? I peered closer at the figure on the right. Little more than a lopsided circle with a curved line for a smile, smudged dots of crayon for hair. No hands, either: just splayed fingers that started at the wrist, touching the line-fingers of the person beside him.

'Come with me a second,' I said.

'Intriguing.'

She followed me out into the hall and we stopped outside Owen's room.

If not now, I thought, when?

As far as I knew, nobody had been in here since the night we returned from the hospital, where my brother's body had been taken. With the door closed, it was almost possible to believe he was still in there. Sleeping, perhaps, or picking his guitar, or doing his hair in the mirror in that new way he'd started in the weeks before he died.

Deep breaths.

I opened the door, felt a whump of decompression, then reached in and turned on the light. The bedroom blinked into bright life in front of me.

And of course, it was empty.

'Wow,' Sarah said. 'This was your brother's room?'

I nodded.

It was like opening a door into another world: a silent, forgotten place. There was a quiet covering of soft, grey snow over everything. The bedclothes, the cupboards, the floor - all hidden by it. I glanced up. The corners of the ceiling were lost to cobwebs, and dust seemed to hang in the air.

My face felt blank.

'You okay?' Sarah said.

'Yeah. Just memories.'

She surprised me again: 'Come here, you.'

I did, and she gave me a hug, her hands tight against my back.

'Really,' I said. 'I'm good. That wasn't quite as bad as I expected.'

'Hey!'

Rob - calling through from the front room.

'Come and have a look at this!'

I stepped back from Sarah and she rolled her eyes at me. She'd got the measure of him already. I'd warned her about Rob in advance - that he could be incredibly charming, but was equally often abrasive and annoying, especially with girls I saw. And I'd warned him, too. So far, he'd been well behaved, and even nodded respectfully at me when Sarah wasn't looking, which seemed a good sign. From her, I was guessing it was closer to fifty-fifty, but for now she seemed more amused than annoyed.

'Hang on,' I called back.

'No, they've got Stanley's book here. I can't believe it.'

'Thom Stanley,' I explained to Sarah. 'He's the psychic I told you about on the phone. The one Rob and I are seeing tomorrow night.'

Stanley was a local man, and we'd had run-ins with him on paper before, each side firing shots at the other. We'd broken a story last year about his earnings, prompting a rather embarrassing investigation into his tax situation. Mediums don't like the subject of money on the table. Obviously, he didn't like us much. He didn't know it yet, but he was going to like us a whole lot less. Stanley was about to grace the middle-page spread of our next issue, as the subject of our monthly 'Take-Down' section.

'Ah, yes,' Sarah said. 'I remember.'

'We can't give this to the fucking charity shop, can we?' Rob shouted. 'Someone might buy it.'

I heard him ruffle through the pages.

'I wonder if we can burn it.'

'Just . . . hang on.'

'It's okay.' Sarah gave me a smile. 'I'll make a start on the pantry.'

I took a last glance into Owen's room, then pulled the door closed again.

'You're a star,' I told her, and meant it.

I found Rob kneeling down in the middle of the front room, surrounded by piles of books and open boxes, flicking through the one in his hands. He looked up as I came in, then tossed the book to one side.

'Close the door.'

I did. He was looking at me intently.

'What?' I said.

'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine. What do you mean?'

'Nothing.' He leaned on his knees then climbed to his feet. 'Just checking. I wanted to make sure you were all right. With this place, and everything.'

'Thanks. How are you doing in here?'

He kicked a pile of books with his feet. 'Not too bad. There's such a lot of shite here.'

'I know.'

'How are you getting on in the kitchen?'

'We're making some progress.'

'Not with the cleaning, you idiot. I mean with Sarah.'

'Oh. Yeah, it's okay.'

'She seems very nice. I like this one.'

'That's good. I'm glad.'

Actually, it was high praise from Rob. In the manner of incredulous best friends everywhere, he'd given nicknames to most of the girls I'd been out with over the years, and the majority of them hadn't been nice. Tori was 'the mad one'. Emma, 'the miserable one'. Julie, God help him, had been 'the slut'.

Thankfully, he hadn't referred to her as that in the office yesterday when I told him what had happened. He had given me a lecture, though.

After I'd explained about the interview, he'd gone out to get us both lunch, leaving me alone with the newspaper I'd bought on the way in. The photograph on the front page was the one Julie had used on her profile at the dating website. I think it must originally have been taken for the notice board in the department: a posed, professional shot that made her look almost innocent. But there was a slight glint in her eyes that hinted at the playful sexuality I associated with her.

When he'd got back, he'd thrown the sandwich on the middle of the paper and ordered me to stop reading it. Every time I protested, he told me again. Eventually, he'd taken it off me altogether. Stop dwelling.

'How are you holding up?' he said now.

'This place? It's not been as bad as I expected.'

'No. About Julie.'

'I'm okay, I think.'

It was partly true. The evening after the interview, all I'd really done was sit on the settee, staring through the television set while I palmed a coin, over and over. I couldn't help thinking about her.

I remembered how small and toned she was. The definition of her back muscles and her thighs. Julie had weighed only a shade over seven stone, but she was deceptively strong: even though I was nearly twice as heavy, she could often overpower me. On our third date, we play-fought and ended up exhausted, face to face on her living room floor, her on top of me, pinning my arms down to either side, our faces deliciously close. We'd stayed there, give or take, for most of the evening.

Why didn't you keep in contact with her?

The coin had slipped and hit the carpet, quiet as a blink.

I hadn't seen or thought much about her in a year - but I still found it hard to believe she was dead, and that the strong, vibrant person smiling down at me in my memory was gone.

When the police had knocked on my front door, I'd been scared they were there because of Eddie. Now, if it meant that Julie might still be alive - even if I never saw or thought of her again - I wished it had been.

'You can't lie to me,' Rob said. 'I know you too well. I can tell you're feeling guilty.'

'I am absolutely not feeling guilty.'

'Yes, you are. Your face twitches when you lie.'

'Don't be so fucking stupid.'

'It just did it again.'

I frowned. 'Maybe I'm feeling a little guilty.'

'And why?'

'Because of what happened to her. Jesus, Rob. She was left to die on her own. Nobody came looking to check she was okay.'

'Yeah, that bothers me too. I should have done something.'

'You didn't even know her.'

'And neither did you. That's the point, Dave. She cheated on you, and instead of hating her like any decent person would, you're actually feeling responsible because something bad happened to her a year down the line.'

I rubbed my forehead with my palm. 'You're as bad as that fucking cop.'

Rob said nothing for a moment.

Then: 'Did you tell Sarah?'

'No.'

He almost looked relieved. 'That's probably for the best. Like I said, she seems nice.'

'She is nice.'

'Right. So don't allow your personality to fuck this up.'

'Thank you.'

'Seriously, I mean it. You're my friend, and I'm not going to sit back while you mess your life up. I know how you get sometimes.'

I wanted to be annoyed with him, but he had such an earnest expression on his face that I couldn't bring myself to feel it. And deep down, he was right. Something awful had happened, but it had nothing to do with me. It wasn't my fault. There was nothing I could or should have done to stop it.

'I'm getting there,' I said. 'Honestly.'

He continued to stare at me, then nodded. He picked up Thom Stanley's book and held it out to me. I took it, noticing the two tickets protruding from the top edge.

'What are these?' I said.

'For tomorrow night. I want you to take Sarah.'

'What? But you've been looking forward to it.'

'Yeah, but I really shouldn't go.' He looked unhappy. 'His people might recognise me.'

Rob had shared a TV spot with Thom Stanley last year at the time of our revelations, and I believe the polite way of describing it would be 'an incident live on air'. There had also been accusations of nuisance phone calls afterwards, although Rob strenuously denied any involvement - just as he denied the existence of a friend at the phone company who might supply him with such details as private home phone numbers and addresses.

'We talked about that before,' I said. 'It's unlikely.'

'Yet possible. Jesus Christ, Dave, do you want the fucking ticket or not? I think it might be good for you. You can see a bit more of each other. Christ knows I'm fed up of seeing you.'

I gave up, and folded the tickets into my pocket.

'Okay. Thanks, Rob.'

'No problem.' He took the book off me, then tapped the cover expectantly and raised his eyebrows. 'Can we burn this now?'

I was about to say no, but then thought about it some more, remembering my father and his bonfires. Why not?

'Outside.' I smiled. 'Second garden down.'

Chapter Twelve

Thursday 1st September

Did it work like this with anything terrible, Mary wondered - with everything you were frightened of? You anticipated it, building it up in your head until it reached huge proportions, only to end up surprised by how mundane it turned out to be. How incredibly ordinary.

It was just before noon, and she was sitting in her car at the base of a tower block, feeling almost absurdly calm. What she was doing at this moment had been the subject of nightmares for the last twelve years, but there was something anti-climactic about it now that it was actually happening.

Seeing her father, in the flesh.

He'd assumed such mythical power in her mind that it was almost shocking to see him outside the context of her memories.

He's just a man, she told herself.

And yet she was shaking, and having to fight back the urge to drive off, which every instinct she had told her she must do right now. It was horribly fascinating to see him, in the same way it might be fascinating to look down and see your guts in your lap.

No, she told herself. You mustn't run away.

You have to deal with him eventually.

She sipped hot soup from the flask she'd brought, and forced herself to watch him. Practice - that was all this was. She was preparing for the day he finally came to take her. Because Mary understood now that it would happen. It was inevitable. After Currie's visit, she'd been left feeling desolate and hopeless - but it had always been stupid to believe anyone might help her. There were only two possibilities now. Either her father would turn up and she'd collapse into the little girl she'd once been, or else he would arrive to find a strong, grown woman who was ready for him. That he would turn up wasn't in doubt. So she needed to get herself used to him.

He's over a hundred metres away; this is perfectly safe.

Over the years, she'd worked hard at risk analysis, and the process was second nature to her now. If her father looked down the hill towards the tower, it was possible he might see her car, but there were several others parked around her, and no reason for him to pick out hers in particular. If he did, he wouldn't be able to recognise her from this distance; she would just be a silhouette: not even a woman, never mind a daughter. And if he approached, either by accident or design, she would drive away before he got anywhere near. That made at least three safety gates between them, which meant she was fine.