Five Strangers Read online

  ‘Jen?’

  ‘What … what were you doing that day, on the Heath? The day of the murder–suicide.’

  ‘Erm – I was meeting you, remember?’

  ‘I know – but before. Before you met me.’

  She goes quiet.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Steven, Steven Walker. And he told me that he saw you talking to Laurence before the attack.’

  I hear her take a deep breath and then exhale. ‘Jen, it’s something I wanted to tell you, something I should have told you a while back.’

  I let her speak.

  ‘It’s not something you’re going to like. But you’ll understand why I didn’t tell you, or at least I hope you will.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was walking up to meet you on the Heath when we bumped into one another, almost literally. I was coming round the corner, you know where the loos are, opposite the café? Laurence didn’t see me and nearly ran into me. We talked for a while before he ran off, and that’s why I was late to meet you.’

  ‘But why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. I was about to tell you, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Do you remember the first night we met Laurence? In the French House?’

  The question takes me aback. Why is she talking about this now?

  ‘Yes, of course, but I don’t understand—’

  ‘We’d all had plenty to drink. You went back to your flat in south London and Laurence and I shared a cab back north.’

  What’s she going to say? I almost don’t want her to tell me. I wish she’d stop, that she’d cut the connection.

  ‘At the end of the journey he asked me into his house for another drink and—’

  ‘What? You slept with him?’

  I hear what sounds like crying.

  ‘I had a drink, and after that I can’t remember anything else. It’s a blank. But … but I think … Jen, I think he … raped me.’

  I can’t take in the enormity of what she’s saying. I’m unable to speak, as if my tongue is paralysed.

  ‘I woke up in his bed. I could remember getting out of the cab, going into this house, saying what a nice place he had, and taking a sip of wine. After that … nothing.’

  I remember Laurence’s bed. I recall the feel of the sheets, the smell of our two bodies together. ‘But you had sex?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Fuck! So he drugged you? Some kind of date-rape drug like Rohypnol?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I suddenly feel sick. I spent five years of my life with Laurence. A man who has not only stalked me, sent me creepy messages, attacked me on the Heath, but one who had raped my best friend. ‘Oh God, Bex, but why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was going to, I really was, but I wasn’t sure what had happened. Whether anything had happened. It would be my word against his. And then you started to date him. I thought it might fizzle out after a few weeks. I didn’t think you’d be a … proper couple.’

  Hearing these words makes me want to scream. I turn to see the little group of strangers in the kitchen. Penelope. Steven. Ayesha. Jamie. His lovely dog lying in a spot of sunshine. The doors to the garden are closed, no one can hear my conversation, but Penelope stands up and stares at me through the glass with a concerned expression. I move away and walk down the lawn to stand under the magnolia tree. The white and pink flowers split open like something indecent. I hear the sound of a bird singing in a nearby tree. The peace and beauty of the moment sit in contrast to what I’m feeling inside. It’s a kind of anger I’ve never felt before. A fury that goes beyond what’s happened to me. A rage that desires revenge.

  I try to keep my voice steady. I think back to the early days of my relationship with Laurence. Initially, I had picked up a certain coldness between Laurence and Bex, but I’d put it down to some kind of unconscious rivalry for my affections.

  ‘How could you still be friends with him? After what he’d done?’

  ‘I suppose for y-you,’ she says, as sobs begin to fragment her voice.

  ‘And what about that day? On the Heath?’

  She sniffs and blows her nose. ‘He started to flirt with me. He said how well I was looking. He told me … he told me that he was just coming to the end of a relationship.’

  ‘With Vicky Da Silva?’

  ‘He didn’t mention a name.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘He asked me out on a date.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I felt like punching him in the face, but of course I didn’t. I told him to fuck off, in a jokey kind of way. Not that I should have tried to let him down gently.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Bex. After what he did to you?’

  62

  BEX

  I can’t believe I managed to think so quickly. I had no idea that Steven Walker had seen me talking to Laurence on the day of the murder–suicide. When Jen told me, I felt as though everything was going to crash down around me. All my careful planning, everything I’d done, would turn to dust. The months of plotting, drawing people together, dropping hints and suggestions here, clues and questions there, gathering everything together in an elaborate dark tapestry, would start to unravel. But then I’d remembered that night with Laurence.

  I’d hoped that our encounter would come in useful, and now was the time to take full advantage of it. I reasoned that if Jen were to confront him with the words, ‘Did you rape Bex the night we met?’ he would deny it at first, but most probably during the conversation he would end up saying something like, ‘Of course I didn’t rape her. Yes, I slept with her, but—’ I was certain that Jen wouldn’t hang around to hear the rest of the sentence. No other words would matter.

  As I finish the call I picture Jen in Penelope’s house. She had told me that she intended to interview all the witnesses there and that there’d be a photographic shoot on Parliament Hill Fields.

  My main worry is the old bitch. I fantasise for a few minutes, imagining what it would be like if I managed to manipulate Jen into killing her – she could push the old lady down those hard marble stairs and it could easily be made to look like an accident – but I realise that this would be too difficult to orchestrate at such short notice. No, if I want to get rid of Penelope I would have to do it myself. But how much does she know about me? I think again of the reverse image of my name on her blotting pad. She’d obviously been doing some digging into my past. I doubted Penelope had uncovered anything significant about me – if she had, there’s no way Jen would still be so friendly and trusting of me – unless, that is, she had taken the decision not to share that information with her.

  I realise that the only way of knowing is to see Penelope for myself. I text Jen and ask her if she wants to meet after the interviews are over. I tell her again that I’m sorry for what happened with Laurence. I’m feeling a bit weepy at the moment, I add, and could do with a bit of support. I could drop by the Hampstead house if that would be easier for her, I say. A few minutes later I get a reply, telling me to come over whenever I’m ready. She’s pleased she finally knows the truth, she says.

  I pull on a jacket and start walking. As I pass through the network of streets that lead on to the Heath I’m conscious that someone is watching me. I look around: there’s nothing but a cluster of well-off mums with pushchairs and a couple of elderly men talking in the street. I carry on walking, cross Highgate Road, pass the tennis courts and café and make my way up to the viewing point. As I stand there on Kite Hill, looking out over London, I get the sense again that I’m being watched. I turn my head quickly as if to catch whoever it is off guard, but it’s just a group of Italian tourists. I wonder for a moment whether I’m becoming paranoid.

  I spend the next hour or so walking around the Heath, noting again the sections of the park that are equipped with CCTV and those without. I know that Jen took my map of
the Heath, which I had annotated with lines showing the areas covered by security cameras. I wonder if she thinks that I didn’t notice her slip it into her pocket. But as I move along I still have a sense that I’m being observed. I stop, turn around and walk in the opposite direction, take a different path, cross a stretch of grass. But it’s still there, the sense of something hovering just out of sight. It’s like a dirty smudge on the edge of my vision that disappears when I try to examine it at close quarters. And the sense of it near, this thing I know is there but cannot see, makes my skin crawl.

  63

  JEN

  Penelope waits for me to finish the call. As soon as she sees me put the phone back in my pocket she dashes out towards me, lifting two fingers that flutter in the air, a sign that she wants to say something to me in private.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks as she glides over.

  I tell her that everything is fine, but Bex would like to drop by once the interviews are over. She’s just had some upsetting news, I add.

  ‘That’s absolutely fine, darling. I’d like to see her, as there’s something I need to ask her … Now, as to the matter in hand – the interviews – I’ve just been talking to the young doctor, Ayesha, and, well to be honest, I’ve got a few concerns. She’s so uptight and stressed. Of course, you can’t blame the poor girl, after what she witnessed … I know she’s only young, but even so … Jen? Are you listening?’

  I’m finding it difficult to concentrate and I miss lots of what she’s saying.

  ‘Anyway, if she proves difficult, monosyllabic and uncooperative, ask her what she was doing the night before the murder–suicide.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just ask her.’

  I’m almost past caring – there are other things on my mind – but I say, ‘I hope you haven’t been interfering again.’

  Penelope’s eyes twinkle with a mischievous, girlish delight; there’s almost a coquettish quality about her.

  ‘Penelope?’

  ‘I have done a little research, yes, just in case. And in Ayesha’s case it proved fruitful. I remember you telling me that Ayesha had told you that she was tired because she had been up all night. Well, yes, that’s true, but only part of the truth. You assumed she had been working in the hospital, the Royal Free. But in fact, Ayesha had not been on duty that night. Instead, a friend tells me she was working somewhere else.’

  ‘What, another hospital? As a locum?’

  ‘No, in a completely different field altogether.’ She pauses for effect. ‘Are you ready for this? Ayesha was working at an establishment that goes by the name of Pink Diamonds.’

  The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. ‘I don’t understand. What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a lap-dancing club in Shoreditch.’

  ‘No – not Ayesha. She’s not that kind of woman. She’s not like that.’

  ‘She’s got one hell of a good figure.’

  ‘But she’s serious, studious. I mean, she’s a doctor for God’s sake.’

  ‘A doctor who needs the money. My contact discovered that she has serious credit card debts, due to a compulsive shopping habit.’

  It’s true that every time I saw her she had been wearing expensive-looking clothes.

  ‘But Ayesha? In a lap dancing club? Are you sure?’

  Penelope nods her head. ‘It explains why she was so tired, why she fell asleep, and also why she was so reluctant to tell you the whole story. No wonder she wants to keep it a secret – imagine if the head of her NHS trust found out.’

  ‘Do you know what she does there?’

  ‘She’s not a dancer, apparently. I’m told she’s a “waitress”.’

  ‘And when you say a little friend told you? You mean a private detective?’

  ‘You know a good journalist never reveals her sources,’ she says, her eyes glinting. ‘Anyway, it’s probably not necessary to tell the world about her little sideline, but you may want to use the information to get her to talk.’

  Under normal circumstances I would snap at Penelope, but I don’t have the energy to be angry. I manage a weak smile and thank her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, fine. Just a bit tired, what with doing one interview after the next.’

  She doesn’t look convinced. She slaps me on the shoulder, and tells me to keep my pecker up. Despite everything, the comment makes me laugh: no one I know apart from Penelope would use such a quaint expression. I step inside, apologise to Ayesha for keeping her waiting, and lead her upstairs. As soon as she sits down to do the interview I know she hates being here. She shifts in her chair to signal her unease and looks at my tape recorder as if it’s a poisonous spider.

  I start by asking her to take me through her memories of that day again. Her answers are to the point, but without detail, colour or emotion. She tells me the facts and nothing else. As she speaks I study her in a way that I haven’t before. She’s wearing a black double-breasted pinstripe trouser suit that looks like it could be Saint Laurent. Her hair is pulled back off her face, which is mostly free of make-up. The effect is businesslike, professional, a touch severe. What does she look like when she really dolls herself up? I imagine her standing in front of the mirror, applying a light foundation, lipstick, eyeshadow; selecting clothes that show off her good figure and highlight the curve of her breasts, the promise of hidden flesh.

  I move on to the second stage of the interview: what kind of impact did witnessing the murder–suicide have on her life? She tells me that it was horrific to watch, of course, and she wishes that she could have been able to save the lives of both Victoria Da Silva and Daniel Oliver. But she was following her medical training, and as a result she forced herself to remain as professionally distanced as possible.

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to go to work soon,’ she says as she gets up from the chair.

  I have a choice: either I can thank her for her time and let her go or I can reveal to her that I know about her other job at Pink Diamonds. The latter option is what Penelope would do. But I don’t have the guts. That, or maybe I don’t have the right to take the moral high ground. And so I smile and shake her hand. Ayesha smiles back, relieved the interview is over, and thanks me. I don’t kid myself that I’m a nice person.

  Penelope is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Did you get her to tell you?’ she hisses.

  ‘I’ve got everything I need,’ I reply.

  ‘Excellent,’ says Penelope, clapping her hands with glee. ‘But Julia’s still not here. Can you believe it?’

  64

  BEX

  I started with small things. A card for the local Italian restaurant slipped down the back of Mum’s chair. A spray of cheap aftershave that I bought from the market spritzed in their bedroom. A pair of white socks that I picked up from a pound shop thrown under their bed. I thought of them as little grenades that had the power to explode at any moment. I liked the unexpected nature of the game, the fact that no one, not even me, knew when their lives were about to change. I visualised what might happen next: Dad’s face when he realised he’d found some actual evidence of Mum’s affair; his rising voice as he accused her, once again, of fucking Mr Jarvis behind his back; the vein in his neck that throbbed like a disturbed worm when he got angry; the sound of his hand hitting Mum across the face; her repeated denials, her threats, her pleas; and then the awful silence when everything was over.

  Funnily enough, that’s not how it played itself out. Instead of shouting and screaming, lashing out and punching, Dad went quiet, unnaturally so. Whenever he did speak his voice was thin, just above a whisper. He looked terrible: pale, shadows under bloodshot eyes, unshaven. He stopped eating and, when he wasn’t working, he seemed to spend more time in bed. When Mum asked him what was wrong he didn’t reply. She suggested he go to the doctor, but he shook his head.

  It was the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, and everyone at school was
talking about who would get a card. When Susan, one of my friends, asked me whether I was going to send any Valentines, I suddenly got the idea. Throughout the day I couldn’t concentrate on my lessons: the thought of it burned itself through me with a delicious intensity.

  After school, I went into town and bought a cheesy card with red roses on the front and some sickly rhyme inside that talked about everlasting love and shit like that. As I held the new black ballpoint pen, bought specially for the task, I felt short of breath, light-headed, almost drunk. I tore out a page from one of my exercise books and practised in a different handwriting. I wrote out the note over and over again until I felt ready. Finally, I opened the card and wrote, ‘Mandy, my one and only love. I can’t wait until the day we can finally be together. All my love, Alan xxx’. I enjoyed running my lips across the sticky edge of the envelope, letting the stream of my saliva mix with the taste of the glue. I wrote ‘Mandy’ on the front of the envelope and put the card in my schoolbag.

  When I arrived home there was no one in. I had the house to myself. I set about preparing the scene. I took out the aftershave, which I’d hidden in the cupboard in my bedroom, and gave a few generous sprays around the living room. I tried placing the Valentine’s card in various locations. On Mum’s dressing table, partly hidden under her make-up; inside her bedside drawer, secreted away inside an old Jackie Collins’ paperback; in the drawer where she kept her knickers and bras. I settled on a place I knew Dad often searched, an old shoebox at the bottom of her wardrobe where Mum kept sentimental mementoes such as old exam certificates and ticket stubs from the days before she met Dad.

  Mum arrived home first and started to make the tea of sausage and mash. As she cooked she gulped back a couple of glasses of white wine and listened to the radio. Dad, still a ghost, drifted in twenty minutes later. The cloying smell of the cooking meat fat dominated the kitchen and so he didn’t notice the aftershave straight away. It was only when he’d taken his overalls off and settled down in the sitting room that he started to pick up the traces of the heady, sweet musk that hung in the air. I sat on the sofa pretending to read as I watched his nostrils begin to open. He recognised the smell as the one he associated with Alan’s presence. He continued to sit for a few minutes, but then he sprang up from his chair and stormed into the kitchen. Colour flushed into his face, and his eyes were full of a manic energy. The dad I knew, the one I feared, was back. I followed him into the kitchen and watched the scene unfold.