The Silence (Dc Goodhew 4) (3 page)

Funny phrase that: out of kilter. I don’t even know what a kilter is. And that’s the point. I knew something was up, but I didn’t have enough experience to guess . . .

Libby’s intended words had trailed off to nothing. The minutes ticked by as she tried to finish the paragraph, but didn’t think she could. For a moment she was tempted to delete the whole page, but that would amount to avoiding talking about Rosie. She could promise herself to type it again, but she knew that it wouldn’t happen.

She pressed ‘send’.

Zoe’s reply was typically short: ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Libby gave a little smile. In Zoe’s photo she had cropped dark hair and the type of face that looked serious even in the middle of a grin. Zoe didn’t need her messages surrounded by frilly words. This was exactly the reason she had picked Zoe to talk to; with her it was okay to be blunt, which in turn took away the excuse to give up. Libby typed quickly.

They found Rosie’s car first, parked up on a bridge crossing the A14. Her body was about half a mile away down on the carriageway. She’d been run over. More than that, actually, but I think, to explain it all . . . I just can’t do that right now.

Can I just say ‘multiple injuries’ and tell you the rest some other time? The press referred to it as suicide.

The police were more cautious and listed other factors: bad weather, poor visibility, heavy traffic and so on. The A14 is notorious for its high accident rate. They never found out what had really happened. At least that’s what they told us, but I have a feeling that they did know. They just couldn’t prove it, and in the end, the verdict was left open.

I couldn’t grasp it at first. It didn’t seem possible. Even at Rosie’s funeral it didn’t seem real, then finally, when I understood that she really was dead, the questions started to form in my head. Little things at first.
Had she ever made it to the cinema? Which film had she seen? Who had she gone with?

I asked myself:
what was it that had prompted her to drive out anywhere near the A14?

I also wondered how long it’d taken for her to die. I didn’t go to the inquest, Mum and Dad were there, but I could hardly ask them. It’s questions like that which make me worry that I have become overly morbid.

My list of questions grows, and I can’t stop it. And when I don’t have proper explanations, I start to invent the answers. It’s a bad habit and I feel like my life is only half lit now, and instead of looking to the light, I’m turning towards the darkest corners. I’ve got it into my head that there is some evil lurking just out of sight. And I’m straining to see it.

You see, I thought things couldn’t get worse, and that losing Rosie was enough.

In fact, it was enough. But what has happened since is too much.

Charlotte Stone knew the history of the Regal Cinema. She knew that it had opened in 1937 and managed to survive for sixty years, through the Second World War, a name change, and even a fire in the mid-1980s. Competition from new movie houses had come and gone, with their rise, demise and conversion into bingo halls. In the end it was the opening of the multiplex in the Grafton Complex that led it to closing its doors in 1997. However, the Regal was a survivor, and re-emerged two years later with its lower floors turned into the Regal pub, and the upper floors converted into the three-screen Arts Picture House.

Charlotte Stone loved the old building’s interior – the curved staircases and the grand Art Deco light-fittings – but most of all she loved it because it was situated slap bang in the middle of St Andrews Street, not too far from her bakery counter job at the town centre branch of Sainsbury’s, but also near the shops she liked to browse, the busiest bars and her favourite pizzeria.

She and Holly left the auditorium and returned to the bar for a post-movie drink, picking a small table halfway along the lounge, with a black-and-white poster of Vivien Leigh looking down on them. Vivien’s eyes were dark and clear, defined by perfectly separated long lashes. Charlotte looked at her friend and, despite the subdued lighting, she could clearly see dark smudges round her eyes.

‘Forgot your waterproof mascara?’ she asked.

‘It’s a good film.’

‘
The Notebook
’s a classic, made even better because we’re here, right?’

‘Okay, okay, I can see that watching it here has more atmosphere than seeing it on DVD. But I’d still have cried at home. I like films wherever I watch them – even on a plane I still enjoy them.’ Holly smiled. ‘I already know what you’re going to say next.’

‘What?’

‘What your dad always says.’ Holly slouched back in her chair, with her arms lying along the armrests and her fists planted squarely one on each side, “‘It’s like drinking a good beer from a plastic cup”.’

Charlotte giggled at the accuracy of the vocal impression.

As Holly’s mobile started to vibrate, she picked up her shoulder bag and reached for her phone. She glanced at the caller display. ‘Your brother.’

Charlotte stopped mid-laugh, and quickly reached forward to take the phone. ‘Matt? What’s wrong?’

Matt’s voice sounded tight. ‘I couldn’t get hold of you. Where have you been?’

‘The Picture House with Holly. I turned my phone off.’

‘You could have left it on silent, then you’d have noticed that I’d rung. You know how I start to think . . . Anyway, Holly didn’t turn hers off.’

Charlotte bit her lip and silently counted to three, hoping to calm him. ‘I expect she forgot,’ she said quietly. ‘We can’t answer phone calls in the cinema, Matt. Or text, either,’ she added, pre-empting his next reproach. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘You think I can’t feel anything unless I’ve got some alcohol in me?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘You just more or less said it: if I’m upset, it means I must be drunk. No, I’m sober – which usually means I will do anything possible not to think about it, but it’s always there. How couldn’t it be? It takes alcohol to numb it just a little bit, and why is it so terrible if sometimes that’s what I need so that I can start to understand things.’

‘Matt, please . . .’

He was audibly crying now. ‘That’s all I want to do, just to understand a little bit, so I can move on. How am I supposed to study or plan things for the future, when there’s nothing there.’

‘Matt, listen to me—’

‘Why? Why, Charlie? You don’t know any more than me. There’s nothing you can tell me, or promise me that means . . .’ Her brother’s voice disintegrated into sobs, then silence as he disconnected the call.

Charlotte dropped Holly’s phone on to the table. ‘I need to go.’

She threw on her jacket and snatched up her bag, glancing just once in Holly’s direction. She saw her friend’s disappointed but accepting expression, and then left without another word.

Charlotte ran down the stairs and out on to the wet pavement. She’d done this before, too many times to count now, but perversely such a response felt increasingly urgent. She didn’t buy her father’s
Cry wolf
theory. Did that mean that, one day, there could come a point when she was the only one still listening to her brother?

She switched her mobile phone on even as she ran, then stuffed it straight back in her pocket. By the time it was ready to use, she’d be almost there.

She turned right down Emmanuel Street, raced through the bus station – and on to the open green space of Christ’s Pieces. At the far end lay some tennis courts surrounded by a high mesh fence.

Despite the coolness of the evening, she knew that’s where she’d find her brother.

He was crouching on his heels, holding on to the fence for balance. His head was bowed, and he was silent. She was aware that she’d seen her little brother almost every day since his arrival in the world a month after her own fourth birthday. She knew him better than anyone. Certainly better than their parents did, and maybe better than his best friend Nathan ever had.

He already knew she was there, but he didn’t look up.

She ran to the fence and kicked at it, about a foot above the ground. ‘Bastard.’ She kicked the fence again, causing a ripple that rattled loudly behind him. ‘Why don’t you ever think about how
I’m
feeling?’

Matt mumbled something but still didn’t look up.

‘Every time you do this, it scares me. Matt – listen to me. You need to get some help – more than just me, as I’m not an expert. There’ll be a student welfare officer or someone, a proper counsellor . . .’

He lifted his head. ‘Like I said,
you
understand. What’s the point of me speaking to some complete stranger? They can have all the qualifications, but they never met Mum, they never met Nathan.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re not listening to me, Matt. I
do
understand, I understand so well that, when you phone me and you sound distressed, I get scared.
Really
scared. And when you phone and can’t get hold of me, you get scared too. We are both the same, but we’re getting out of control. We have to find a way to help each other, not make things worse.’

‘I don’t know where to begin. Do you?’

‘No, but we need to start to get over it.’

‘Like Dad, you mean?’ She heard the tightness in his voice.

Charlotte’s anger had been subsiding, but she couldn’t help reacting, and her temper surged again.

‘Because he enjoys a drink with a friend, or a night out, you think he’s happy?’

‘Happier than when she was alive.’ Matt scrambled to his feet, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a badly folded bundle of A4 printouts. ‘We need somewhere with more light.’

He led them down the narrow alleyway between the Champion of the Thames pub and kebab shop, and stopped in front of the glowing kebab-shop window. He opened out the sheets of paper and thrust them towards her.

Stress and cancer link confirmed by scientists.

She only had to look at this first heading to know that every page would offer evidence of the same theory. ‘You have to stop this, Matt. It’s no one’s fault she died. You can’t blame Dad.’

‘He gave her a hard time.’

‘No – you just thought he did.’

‘How many times did you come home from school to see she’d been crying? Or looking sick with worry? There’s nothing else that could make her that unhappy – only Dad. And if it wasn’t him, why didn’t he fix it?’

Charlotte opened her mouth to argue but Matt got in first, grabbing back the sheets of paper and waving them in her face.

‘I’ve bookmarked loads of it. It’s all over the Internet, and it wouldn’t be if it wasn’t true, would it?’

‘The Internet’s full of crap.’

‘When it suits you, it is. I’ve seen your search history, Charlie, and you’re just like me except you want to find the answer somewhere else.’

Charlotte turned and looked up the street in the direction of the house Matt shared with the other students. His gaze followed hers.

Suddenly Charlotte had had enough. Now she just wanted him to go home.

No, that wasn’t true. What she actually wanted was for him to
come
home, to make peace with their dad and stop asking her questions that she couldn’t answer, or couldn’t face asking herself. She turned back to him, but he continued to look away.

‘Why don’t you fix it, Matt? Come home, and talk to Dad. He’d answer your questions. I know he would.’

Matt shook his head then started to walk away. Charlotte followed.

It was only a few yards, but in that time Matt remained silent. Charlotte guessed he was angry with her, thinking she’d pushed it too far this time. But when he stopped just outside his front-room window and turned towards her, she realized that he had started to cry.

She grabbed hold of him and held him tight. Through his tears he sobbed the truth, and told her his biggest fear.

Libby looked out from the window of her first-floor bedroom in the student house. She was the youngest of the seven housemates and the only one still studying for A levels. They were a mix of first-year students attending Anglia Ruskin University, second-year students at Cambridge University and one post-grad American. Her name was Shanie and somehow she managed to be the least worldly-wise of them all.

Libby and Matt had been involved in choosing the house. A quirk of the fact that it was their two fathers who had control of the purse strings and had been anxious to find accommodation that they all agreed upon. It hadn’t mattered to her that Long Road sixth form college was a mile and half across town. By the time she had convinced her dad that this house would be just a few short steps home from almost every night out, he’d dropped his objections to her daily bike ride to and from classes.

Libby preferred this side of the city. Her window faced in the approximate direction of her childhood home in Avbury. She couldn’t see it and it certainly wasn’t where she wanted to live right now but that didn’t mean she wasn’t glad to know it was there. The foot of her bed abutted the windowsill, and she lay across it, with her face close to the glass.

She was a fraction over five foot three in height so found lying across the bed as comfortable as lying on it lengthways. She was propped up on her elbows, with her fair hair scooped away from her face.

The others were downstairs playing poker and she’d declined the game, saying she had an assignment to finish. It was actually true, but there was nothing like some pressing coursework to give her the urge to check her emails. Normally this would result in a couple of hours lost while bouncing between her inbox, eBay and Facebook, but after the first email her thoughts drifted to Matt.

They were close, and usually he talked to her, but not tonight.

Something was bothering him – but that was a stupid thing to think, for when was it
not
bothering him? Tonight though, bad thoughts had drawn him in and she saw the pain written on his face. He’d gone to the fridge, raiding Oslo’s shelf for a can of lager, then, after a couple of swigs, had tipped it into the sink in disgust. He’d opened and shut everyone else’s food cupboards, finally settling for a bottle of vodka belonging to one of the girls.