Precious Thing (13 page)

Those women
.

Four women – mothers, wives, daughters – murdered by Charlie Carvello, whose crimes went undetected for decades until science finally caught up with him. He’d been sentenced to life at the Old Bailey the week before.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘and I’m sorry no one believes you.’

‘You asked me if I had something to say love, well it’s this. You can be so close to someone for a lifetime and not know who they really are.’

I looked at Ann and tried to see beneath her immaculate make-up, the hair set into place. And all I could see was a hollow nothingness that told its own story. All the memories built up and treasured through the years, her children, her love, all the smiles and laughter and hard times, they’d all been stripped out of her by his lie.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘looking back, I think there were signs. There are always signs and clues, it’s a question of whether we want to see them. Most of the time we only see what we want to see.’

We talked for another hour until the tea went cold and she made another pot. We talked about her children, her treatment by journalists, ‘most of them were awful, not like you’, and by the time I suggested my cameraman came in and record a few minutes with her –
your story, how you want to tell it –
there was no resistance.

When we were finished I gave her a hug as I headed to my car, her body even more frail to touch than it looked. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for understanding.’ I told her not to mention it and saw the relief in her face, her features softened. A weight lifted. I’d given her the chance to have her say. And then I waved her goodbye taking with me thirty minutes of the interview everyone wanted with Ann the wife of a serial killer. At work people always said I had a knack of getting people to talk, as if it was luck. But luck had nothing to do with it. I could just see what people needed, what they wanted, before they even knew themselves.

It was dark by the time I arrived in West London. Pulling up outside the aircraft hangar that was the NNN news factory I could see the harsh lights of a newsroom hard at work. Once parked, I ran from the car to the door, swiping my ID card to let myself in. I stopped for a moment to find my phone and check for missed calls –
has Jonny tried to reach me?
I felt the hard edges of the tape inside my bag and smiled, imagining Robbie’s face when I told him the interview it contained. Finally I found my phone in the side pocket of my bag. Five missed calls: one from my Aunty Laura, two from Jake, two from Sandra, Jonny’s mum.
The police have contacted her. I must call her.

I marched on towards Robbie’s desk and was within earshot of his ranting, ‘You missed your slot, you idiot,’
when I felt a hand on my arm pulling me in the opposite direction.

‘You might want to give him a wide berth,’ Jake said, nodding in Robbie’s direction.

He said nothing else, but his arm was firm around me and I felt myself being swept from the newsroom. When I tried to protest he said he would explain,
outside.

We’d almost made it back to the door when I saw it. The photograph on the big screen, towering above the newsroom. I didn’t recognise the suit, the tie, and the face was younger, but unmistakable. The room slipped away from me; nothing else was left but the picture of him until he disappeared too, replaced by DCI Gunn talking to the camera. And even before I saw it flash up on the screen I knew what was coming next. The CCTV of you and Jonny together on the promenade. It was there in front of me, the shot zooming in, closer and closer still. So close, I thought I could reach out and touch you.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Jake said and I followed him without a word.

We went round the corner to Ozzie’s, an old-style greasy spoon. Only the old hacks still went there at lunchtime for fried bread and sausages. Everyone else went to the new deli that sold carrot and ginger and spirulina juice and smoothies and weird combinations of soup. Ozzie himself was an old Greek guy who had eaten too much of his own food and insisted on combing the remaining strands of his dyed black hair over his bald head. The café was empty but he showed us to a table by the window, looking mildly pissed off when we insisted on sitting at the back, out of sight, next to a large mirror. We ordered two teas and pretended to look at the yellowing menus he’d given us.

‘They announced it this afternoon and released the CCTV at the same time. I tried to call you.’

‘It’s all wrong. It’s so wrong. Jonny wouldn’t have touched her. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t.’ I wanted to say it over and over again and scream it very loud until everyone understood: Jonny had nothing to do with your disappearance.

‘You said you’d told Robbie everything, Rachel,’ Jake said, shaking his head. He was wearing an olive-green ’boarding jacket which he unzipped and pushed over the back of the chair.

‘I told him enough.’ I didn’t want to look at Jake, I didn’t want to answer his questions.

‘But you didn’t tell him your boyfriend was the last person to see her,’ he said, slamming the menu shut.

‘I don’t know that he was.’ I was still staring at the words in the menu: omelette and chips, sausage and chips, pizza and chips, thinking of Ozzie’s greasy hands touching the food.

‘For fuck’s sake, Rachel, I’m trying to look out for you here. You can see the headlines: “TV Reporter’s Lover Prime Suspect in Friend’s Disappearance.”’

‘You’d never have made it as a subeditor,’ I said, watching Jake screw his face up in frustration as Ozzie make his way across the café with our teas.

‘What can I get you to eat?’ Ozzie asked.

Jake ordered egg and chips. I shook my head and handed Ozzie the menu, prompting him to mutter something about being too thin and needing to fatten up.

Jake sat studying my face and then after checking to see that Ozzie was out of earshot, he smiled weakly and said, ‘You’re not as good as you think you are. I know what you do, Rachel, I’ve seen you in action too many times. The way you operate. You tell people what you think they need to hear. You keep from them what you think they don’t. It works, time and time again, the way you cast a spell on them. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it works with everyone.’ I could feel the heat of his eyes on me. He looked different somehow, serious, not to be messed with, unshakeable. I think it was the moment I decided I wanted him on my side.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Everything.’

I sat there in the dimming light of Ozzie’s, with its once-white paint, yellowed by years of frying food, and the smell of chips sinking into my clothes, and I told him about you, Clara, my best friend in the world, the person who’d shot into my grey life like a burst of sunshine. I described the girl who’d laughed and partied with me and promised we’d be friends forever.

I told him that I had believed you, but somehow when you became ill our friendship was derailed and no matter how hard I tried to get us back on track I never quite succeeded.

And then I described how I’d found the photograph in my bedroom, the one of me and Jonny switched for one of you and my mother. I watched his face cloud over, his eyes grow wide and I listened to his questions:
Wasn’t I mistaken?
How could that happen if no one had broken in?
When I offered no answers I watched it grow darker still.

He asked about you and Jonny, about your relationship – a word that stung me, Clara – he talked about the pair of you in the same breath as if you were a unit now, bound together by the threads of the story. I told him what I knew, going back to the beginning. The first time you and Jonny met not even eighteen months before.

E
IGHT THIRTY P.M.
– that’s the time I told you the party was starting, which was half an hour later than Jonny and I had told everyone else. I thought it would be better that way, to have more people around when you met him for the first time. I thought it might make it less obvious that there were three people now where before there had only ever been the two of us.

But when we arrive at seven forty-five you are already lounging on one of the deep sofas in the section reserved for Jonny’s party and cordoned off with rope. You sit, one leg curled under the other, sipping a mojito. Your dark hair is teased back, like you haven’t bothered, and your face is glowing, the whites of your eyes are super-white, set off by black eyeliner which makes them seem unfeasibly big. You’re in a purple dress which is low-cut front and back, and killer heels. You lift a long slender arm in the air and wave it in my direction. I see Jonny watching you, then he turns to me, asking with his eyes if it’s you. I nod.

The bar is dark, still early-evening quiet, and we make our way across to you. As we do you stand up, arms outstretched. Your teeth flash a white smile. ‘Rach,’ you say and kiss me on both cheeks so I get a waft of your perfume. Then you stand back and look at Jonny, taking in his dark hair, his almond eyes, his dress-down cool.

‘You always did have good taste in friends, Rach,’ and you wink at me before leaning in to kiss Jonny. ‘I’m Clara,’ you tell him unnecessarily.

‘Finally, I get to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ Jonny says.

‘All good things, I hope,’ you laugh, a little nervously. ‘Did I hear you say you were going to the bar, Rach, mine’s a mojito.’

You listen to me groan. ‘Nice to see some things never change,’ I say.

‘Come on, I’ve only just met him, we have a lot to talk about.’ I make a face and you say: ‘I promise I’ll get the next round in.’

You sink back down on to the sofa and pat the seat next to you. Jonny sits down. ‘Rach never tells me a thing,’ I hear you whisper as I walk away. ‘I’m relying on you to fill in the blanks.’

From the bar I can hear your laughter. It’s thick and intoxicating. I’m not in the mood for cocktails, I need something heavy and alcoholic so I buy a bottle of red wine. A couple of Jonny’s friends arrive and I say hi to them. When I return to our little section it’s filling up – Jonny’s colleagues, his gang, the friends he’s known for years. The people who have become part of my circle too.

I look over to the sofa and Jonny is smiling, laughing with you. He doesn’t look around for me, for his drink even. He’s in your thrall. I say hello to a few people on the way and make it over to you but it’s awkward because the sofa is only big enough for two people which means I’m one too many. Jonny sees me and gets up to stand. ‘Rach, you sit down, you two must be dying for a gossip.’

‘Don’t worry about us,’ you say to Jonny, ‘we’ve known each other so long we have nothing left to talk about. There’s nothing we don’t know about each other.’ Finally you turn to me, fixing me with your smile.

It’s a strange thing to say, Clara. You have been away for so long there’s a lot you don’t know about me. But I catch it, the electricity that sparks between us.

‘I can still surprise you, Clara,’ I say, chinking your glass as Jonny gets up and makes room for me.

We watch Jonny mingling with his friends, embracing each other in that bear-hug way that men do.

‘I was wondering whether you’d turn up. I’ve been trying to call you all week,’ I say, digging my elbow into you gently. ‘A few phone calls or texts wouldn’t go amiss.’

It’s only been a few months since you returned and less since your dad died. I worry about you in Brighton, on your own. I want to make sure you’re OK.

‘I can see why you’re smitten,’ you say, eyes trained on him.

‘I’m glad you came though.’ I give your knee a squeeze. ‘It was beginning to feel weird that you hadn’t met him. I’ve told him everything about you.’

‘Everything,’ you repeat. Your voice is flat, distant. I don’t know whether it’s a question or a statement. And then you add: ‘Not everything, I bet.’

I laugh but I hear it crackling with nerves.

Your hands are on mine, enveloping them, and you look so deep into me, the way you used to when we knew everything about each other, when we could think each other’s thoughts, and I wonder if I’m wrong. Maybe you are pleased for me. You’re just so hard to read these days.

‘It’s touching …’ you say, eyes sparkling, dancing in the light.

‘You can see why I love him.’ I feel you loosen your grip. Then you lift your hand and use it to flick back a strand of my hair that has been falling into my face. ‘He loves me too,’ I say and you reach out to me and pull me into a tight embrace. A happiness fizzes through me and then I feel your breath in my ear and your words reach me.

‘He doesn’t even know you, Rachel,’ you say in a whisper, ‘he doesn’t know who you are.’

It’s twelve thirty a.m. and we’re out on the street. The cool air is sobering me up after the warmth of the bar. Jonny’s friend Dylan has his arm draped over you. I want to go home but I hear your voice, ‘Jesus Rachel, you’re twenty-five, not forty-five, for God’s sake come on.’ A cab with its orange light on approaches and you hail it.

I’m sure Jonny doesn’t want to go either but Dylan insists. It seems you’ve rediscovered your old magic tonight and you’re using it on him. He has that look in his eyes, fired up with a promise of what might happen, and he’s not going to let go. We go to a nameless Soho club, the kind that makes you want to forget everything in the morning. We pay too much to get in and when we slip through the dark curtains that are draped over the door the music thumps through me. I turn to look at Jonny and I know he’s feeling the same. You must catch it because next thing you’re pulling on my arm, dragging me off to the toilets. Once we’re in the cubicle together you produce a little rectangle of paper.

‘You need a pick-me-up,’ you say.

You cut two fat lines of cocaine on the toilet seat and don’t listen to me when I say I’m not in the mood. You swing round and say: ‘Come on, Rach, don’t tell me you’ve gone all straight.’ You hand me a rolled-up ten-pound note and say, ‘It’ll be like old times.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I say and I slip out the door.

When I find Jonny I shout in his ear that he needs to take me home. He has a word with Dylan, telling him to make sure you’re OK. Even if you don’t make it back to my flat I know you’ll have a bed for the night.