Five Strangers Read online

  ‘He might be just trying to shake things up and will have changed his mind by Monday. You’ve always said how unpredictable he can—’

  ‘I’ve been sacked, Bex, can’t you understand that?’ Her voice was full of anger.

  ‘I’m only trying to get a clear picture of what happened, that’s all,’ I said.

  She took a deep breath and spat out the words, ‘What happened is that I lied about my parents!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The death of my mum and dad, in that car accident,’ she said. She closed her eyes as if she were trying to protect herself from the horror of her disclosure. ‘They didn’t die in that car crash. In fact, there wasn’t a car crash at all.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You told me that – that you were fourteen. Your life was turned upside down.’

  ‘My mum and dad died when I was in my early twenties, Mum first from cancer, Dad soon after from a heart attack,’ she said, reciting the words as if she were an automaton.

  ‘But that’s when we already knew each other,’ I said. ‘How could you lie like that?’ I cast my mind back to the first conversation we’d had in halls. ‘I remember your words as clear as anything. How your parents had died in a car crash. I saw the pain on your face. I couldn’t imagine how that must have been for you. I felt so sorry for you.’

  ‘I know, and it was wrong of me. Unforgivable.’

  ‘Unforgivable? Is that all you’ve got to say? For fuck’s sake, Jen. But why?’

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose I thought you’d find me more interesting.’

  ‘So what happened? Did someone find out about your little secret?’

  ‘Go ahead and hate me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you,’ I said, even though I wasn’t sure about the truth of those words at that moment. ‘I’m just trying to get my head around this.’

  ‘A reader sent a letter to the editor’s office, outlining some of the things that he said I’d made up,’ she said. ‘For proof, the reader very helpfully enclosed copies of my mum and dad’s death certificates. The managing editor checked it all out and it turned out she came to the same conclusion.’

  ‘Who was he? Was it someone you know? An ex-boyfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jonathan wouldn’t tell me,’ she said. ‘And he ordered me to clear my desk there and then. He told me that if I made a fuss or tried to fight him he’d make sure that the truth would come out. That I was a liar.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Fuck.’ She put her head in her hands and started to sob again.

  I didn’t know what to say, how best to comfort her. Or whether she should be comforted at all.

  13

  JEN

  Jamie Blackwood’s house is like something you’d see in one of those glossy interior magazines. From a distance the four-storey home appears like all the others in the terrace – tall, elegant, understated in a rich person’s kind of way. There is a box hedge in the front garden that’s so neat and manicured it looks like someone trims it every day. The window frames are painted a tasteful shade of grey. Is it Dove Tale or Charleston Gray? The idea that I can even recognise the possible shade makes me smile. After all, I grew up in a house with a swirly, patterned carpet and a radiant bar electric fire.

  As I press the button on the videocom I suddenly feel self-conscious and shabby, like an impostor. Who am I to think I can just turn up at the door of someone like Jamie Blackwood? Perhaps I should have listened to Bex after all. I’m on the point of turning away, but then I get buzzed in. I take a deep breath and step inside.

  I assumed that the inside would be in a style I like to call traditional luxe – walls painted rich colours, gilt frames, huge mirrors, enormous squidgy sofas – and so I’m surprised to see everything so stripped back. Stepping into his house is like entering into a twenty-first-century monastery.

  ‘Jen, how are you?’ says Jamie, coming towards me and, as a matter of habit, extending his bandaged hand, before withdrawing it again. I notice that his forearms are strong and muscular, covered with the lightest dusting of freckles. ‘Sorry, still can’t get used to the bandages.’

  ‘Will there be any long-term damage? Serious I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but just as well I’m not a concert pianist or a bloody brain surgeon. Actually, funnily enough, before going into finance I did go to medical school. Luckily, I dropped out.’ He laughs. ‘Have you had lunch?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, lying. I can’t face food at the moment.

  ‘Tea? Coffee?’ he asks, as he leads me down a concrete staircase to the lower-ground floor, an expanse of white that seems to stretch on for ever. Personal possessions have either been confined to invisible cupboards or to the bin. There is nothing here that gives me a clue about the personality of Jamie Blackwood apart from the fact that he likes to keep things minimal.

  ‘Just a glass of water would be great,’ I say. ‘God, your house is … well, it’s amazing. I can’t believe you live here with a dog.’

  ‘Why?’ he says, laughing. ‘Because it’s so clean?’

  ‘Yes, and your dog – well, he’s not a chihuahua.’

  ‘You can say that again, Freddie is definitely not a chihuahua.’ He walks over to a huge stainless steel fridge, the inside of which glows like an altarpiece. He pulls out a bottle of San Pellegrino and pours the sparkling water into two tall glasses.

  ‘Alex is out with him at the moment, in Regent’s Park,’ he says, passing me a glass. ‘He couldn’t face Hampstead Heath after … after what happened.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ I say. ‘As I said, I’m thinking about writing a longer feature about the crime – what we saw, how it’s affecting us all. And I wondered whether it was something you’d consider?’

  ‘I’ve read all your columns, you know, I’m a fan,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Really?’ I’m not sure how I feel about his praise.

  ‘And it must have taken a lot of courage to write about some of the things you covered,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it did.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t want to embarrass you,’ he says, waving a bandaged finger across his face. ‘But you probably know you’ve got a huge gay following.’

  Why is he being so nice to me?

  ‘Oh yes, the gays just love your pain,’ he says, in a mock-camp manner. ‘Anyway, despite all that, you’re a damn fine writer. I bought the News just because of you.’

  What does he want?

  ‘It’s odd, though, I haven’t seen your column recently.’

  I feel a sliver of ice pierce my heart.

  ‘Have you been on holiday?’

  The question seems innocent enough; after all, there hadn’t been an announcement in the paper telling the readers that I was going to leave. What can I tell him? Certainly not the truth. I find my mouth opening and closing as I struggle to find the right words. I’m conscious of Jamie looking at me with a worried expression, and it’s obvious that my reaction embarrasses him.

  ‘Sorry, anyway, back to the here and now,’ he says. ‘Of course, I’m very willing to help you, that goes without saying.’ He takes a sip of water. ‘But there’s something I wanted to run past you.’

  Okay, here we go. This is why he is being nice.

  I knew it wasn’t just because he liked me. I’ve made that mistake before. I don’t want to make it again.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ I ask.

  ‘I know how journalists work – one of my exes used to be one,’ he says. ‘He was a political commentator, very different kind of work, but he told me something that went on. And, of course, you’d only be doing your job.’

  What is he trying to say?

  ‘The thing is that a few years back my boyfriend at the time, Sam, he died … from a drugs overdose. I realise that this is something that might get dragged up, whether I agree to help you or not.’ He stops as he tries to think how best to proceed. ‘I know you’ll have to men
tion it in your piece, but I’m just trying to think how best to manage it.’

  How best to manage me. That’s what he really means.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that of course I’m happy to help with your piece, but I’d like some kind of assurance that you’d represent me … fairly.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I say. ‘It might be best if you told me what happened – with Sam.’

  He digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out his phone. ‘I’ve got a photo on here somewhere,’ he says, as he starts to scroll through his images.

  I wonder if he was as young and as pretty as his current boyfriend, Alex.

  ‘Here we are,’ he says, passing the phone over to me.

  The boy was in his early twenties, blond, Scandinavian. He looked like a model.

  ‘He was a wild card, that one,’ he says. ‘Loved to party, if you know what I mean. Well, I suppose both of us did.’

  After I pass the phone back to him Jamie gazes at the photo of this blond god with a look of yearning, sadness, and something else – a touch of guilt, perhaps? I stay silent, knowing that this is the best way to get someone to open up.

  ‘It was a typical week. I worked crazy, and I mean really crazy hours. Sam was a student, a medical student. What a fucking irony, heh? He should have known better. I should have known better. Anyway, we’d been to a club – a new one under the arches in Vauxhall. We’d been drinking, taking stuff – a bit of speed, some ketamine, booze, cocaine. Then we came back here with a couple of guys we’d met at the club. Everyone started to relax. Sam had taken crystal meth before – we’d done it together – but that night he must have taken too much. He paired off with one of the younger guys in one of the bedrooms. I said goodnight to him and I went off into my bedroom, alone. I woke the next morning to some shouting. The guys were going crazy, and then one of them ran out of the house, we never saw him again. I’m not even sure what his name was. Sam wasn’t moving. I tried everything – I shook him, tried to give him coffee, threw some freezing cold water over him. But he wouldn’t wake up. I dialled for an ambulance, but when the paramedics came, they … they couldn’t do anything …’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘That must have been awful.’ I am conscious that my words sound feeble.

  ‘There was something of a minor scandal after the inquest,’ he says. ‘Reports in the Standard, Metro, Telegraph, Mail. Work wasn’t too much of a problem – I run my own hedge fund, you see – but even so the whole situation was pretty ghastly.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Anyway, as I said, I’m keen to help you, but I’d hate it if what happened in the past was dragged up again. It’s as much for Alex’s sake as for mine. You see, Alex has persuaded me to ditch the whole scene thing. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Hence the dog. There’s even an idea we might get married.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ says Jamie, smiling weakly. ‘I know you may have to refer to … to Sam’s death. But I don’t want it to overshadow this incident. God knows, it’s horrific enough in and of itself.’

  ‘Quite,’ I say. What we witnessed on Parliament Hill Fields had bonded us, all of us – Jamie Blackwood, Julia Jones, that doctor, Ayesha Ahmed, the teenager whose name I did not know – in a way that none of us could probably explain. But it means that my loyalties to Jamie are different to those I would feel towards any other interviewee. In a funny sort of way I feel protective of him now. ‘Although I can’t be sure how the newspaper will handle it, I promise I won’t go big on your friend’s death or the inquest or what happened that night. It’s what happened on Valentine’s Day on Hampstead Heath that concerns me.’

  ‘Thank you, Jen, that means a lot,’ he says. But then a puzzled expression clouds his face. ‘I thought it was obvious what happened up there. You saw it. I saw it. There was a group of us that all witnessed the same godawful thing.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t look too convinced.’

  ‘I’m just being stupid, probably. It’s nothing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s just that I got a message from someone, a stranger, to say … No, don’t worry. It’s too ridiculous to mention.’

  ‘What? What did it say?’

  ‘Just that … that Daniel Oliver didn’t kill Victoria Da Silva.’

  Jamie looks even more bewildered and confused. ‘But that’s mad!’ He speaks to me as a friend, not someone who is interviewing him.

  I can’t let my guard down too much and so I reach into my bag and pull out my tape recorder.

  ‘Exactly, that’s what I thought, anyway if I can just begin by asking whether you’d mind being recorded?’

  ‘No, that’s absolutely fine,’ he says. ‘And if you’re in any doubt, you can always see the photos that Alex took. God, I wish he hadn’t. But they’re all there, shot after shot. He wanted to take some of Freddie, and of course the view too. But when it all … well, when it happened apparently Alex just carried on. We thought about deleting them, but I suppose we should show them to the police at some point.’

  I wonder why he hasn’t offered them up already, but I don’t say anything. Instead I ask, ‘So, he’s got photographs of … of the incident?’

  ‘Yes, dozens of them, it seems. And a short video I think. You’re very welcome to see them, if you’ve a strong stomach that is. He won’t be long, I shouldn’t think.’

  He takes me through his experience of that early afternoon up on the Heath. He remembers the clarity of the light, the sense of an early spring in the air. He talks of a sense of happiness flooding over him, the promise of a new beginning after Sam. He’d endured a spell of depression after Sam’s death, he said. With Alex he thinks he’s found someone with whom he can share the rest of his life. He recalls the moment on the Heath when both of them were stroking their dog. The feel of its smooth fur against his skin. The touch of Alex’s fingers on his own. The sunlight caressing his face. The goofy grin he pulled when doing that selfie.

  He hadn’t been that conscious of the other people around him. He’d vaguely noticed that there was a young couple nearby enjoying a bottle of champagne, but he hadn’t paid much attention to the others – a young woman sitting on a bench wearing headphones, a middle-aged woman out exercising, a teenage boy, and me. If he’d known how we were all going to be joined together, fused in that moment, he would perhaps have have paid more attention. But all this was on the periphery of his vision. He and Alex were talking about the plans they had made for later that day, when he heard the sound of raised voices. He turned his head to see the young couple arguing. What a shame, on Valentine’s Day. But not entirely surprising. He recalls thinking about some of the disasters he’d endured on previous Valentine’s Days, and then he heard a smash. There was glass, glinting in the sun. The man stood up, brandishing the broken edge of the bottle.

  He takes me through the rest of the incident. The shouting. The way Daniel ground the broken bottle into Victoria’s mouth. How he called out to that passing jogger, and how he tried to intervene to stop the attack. The relief that came knowing it was all over, shortly followed by the sickening feeling it had only just begun. The sight of the blood spilling out of Victoria’s throat. The acidic aroma of vomit, mixed with the metallic smell of the blood. The hatred he had for the attacker, and the terrible surge of relief he felt when the man slit his own throat.

  By the end of the account Jamie has tears in his eyes.

  ‘I can’t even bring myself to say his name – but that girl, that poor girl,’ he says. ‘There was nothing we … nothing anybody could do. We stood by as the life slipped out of her. But why? I kept asking myself that question, and I’ve been asking it ever since. Jesus knows, I’ve felt jealous, as I’m sure everyone has. I’ve even felt driven to the point where I’ve fantasised about doing something bad. Not seriously, you understand. But to actually go through with it, to actually kill someone like that? I don’t unde
rstand it and perhaps I never will.’

  I am just about to say something when I hear the door open upstairs, soon followed by the barking and scuffle of a dog.

  ‘It’s Alex – and Freddie, of course!’ says Jamie, standing up. ‘Alex, I’m down here – with Jen.’ He lowers his voice as he addresses me again. ‘Don’t worry if Alex seems a little … off. He was dead against me talking to you. But I told him that it would be better if—’

  At that moment the Weimaraner, as sleek and elegant as a racehorse, canters into the room and into Jamie’s arms.

  ‘Did you have a good walk? Did you?’ says Jamie, talking to it like a clever baby. ‘Pleased to see Daddy?’ He catches my eye and apologises. ‘Sorry, as you can see, he’s … well, Freddie’s everything to us.’

  ‘No, I totally understand,’ I say. The feeling of loss hasn’t gone away. Watching the exquisite bond between person and animal being played out before me brings back the searing pain. ‘I have, sorry, I had the same kind of thing with my cat, Henry.’ Saying the name always makes me smile, just because it seemed such a ridiculous name for a cat. Especially because Henry was a female cat. ‘Henrietta,’ I add.

  ‘Oh yes, I remember now from one of your columns,’ he says. ‘Did she go missing?’

  So he wasn’t lying earlier; he was a fan, after all. ‘You’ve got a good memory,’ I say.

  ‘I remember you said you were thinking of moving abroad – where was it? Switzerland? – with your boyfriend,’ he says.‘And then you found that she’d been attacked by a fox. God, that must have been awful for you. But you decided against moving abroad in the end?’

  He must have seen the expression on my face because he starts to apologise for being overly curious. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to intrude – and you’re the journalist here,’ he says.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘That … that relationship didn’t work out.’ I don’t want to go into details, and luckily I hear Alex come down the stairs.

  ‘Alex – you remember Jen, from …’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he says. The tall, dark-haired young man stretches out his hand and smiles politely, but there is a coldness to his grey eyes that betrays his true feelings. He doesn’t want me here.