Can't Let Go (16 page)

I was sitting at a table outside the cafe in Russell
Square, trying to gather my thoughts. I had my
baseball cap rammed down over my face and a copy
of one of the London free papers to hide behind. I
probably looked ridiculous but I didn't care. I was taking
sensible precautions, something I should have started
doing years ago. I'd chosen this open space because it felt
safer than somewhere enclosed. There were plenty of
escape routes, plenty of places I could run to if I felt
threatened. It was the first time I'd ventured out of my flat
since getting that second note. I'd spent Sunday indoors
with my phone turned off, avoiding calls from my parents
and Danny's ring at the door, and his calls through the
letter box. I'd watched old black and white films on
Channel Four and tried to empty my head. Eventually I
went to bed and tried to sleep, but even when I was asleep
my dreams were full of faceless men following me.

I left my flat and took a complicated route to Russell
Square. On the way, I popped into the supermarket at the
Brunswick Centre and wandered around the aisles,
checking that I hadn't been followed, trying to lose
anyone who might be tailing me. I went into the toilets
there and I changed my T-shirt and put the baseball cap
on. Even as I did it, I felt ridiculous. It felt as if I was in one
of those paranoia thrillers from the 1970s –
Three Days of
the Condor
or
The Parallax View.
I felt stupid doing it, but
also stupid that I hadn't started taking precautions like this
a long time ago.

From my vantage point outside the cafe I could see
everyone who was entering and leaving, and all the other
customers at all the other outside tables. There was a
middle-aged couple at the neighbouring table, the man
slim with thinning grey hair and heavy black glasses, the
woman in some kind of ethnic dress, the pair of them
absorbed in their conversation and their lattes. There was
a yummy mummy of about my age in a Boden skirt that
was plastered with brightly coloured appliquéd flowers.
She had two kids, one a little boy of about four, the other
a pink-clad girl a couple of years older, and they were
running in hyperactive circles around the tables and the
chairs. The woman caught me looking at her over the top
of my newspaper and she smiled a weary smile. It was
probably supposed to be a smile of sympathy at the sticky
hot weather, or maybe because she thought I understood
her.

Then there was a man alone, a man with dark hair.
Tallish, from what I could tell by the way he was sitting.
He was sitting there in a white shirt and a pair of suit
trousers, his jacket flung over one of the other seats. He
had loosened his tie and rolled his sleeves up. He had dark
glasses on – very dark glasses. It was impossible to see his
eyes behind the lenses. He was in his late twenties,
perhaps, loose-limbed and arrogant of posture. He was
sprawled in his chair. There was something relaxed yet
attentive about the way he was sitting. There was a cold
drink – Coke, I think – on the table in front of him. He
could have been staring right at me; it was impossible to
tell because his shades were so dark. He could have been
watching me, hiding in plain sight. He could have been
Rivers Carillo's son, or the son of an old friend of his, or
Elliot or Jason or Jonas, or someone, anyone, who knew
what I had done and hated me for it. Someone who knew
what I looked like now, because he'd seen me on my
sister's blog.

I'd printed off the page and I had it with me now. The
blog was called
It's All True – the story of a girl called Jem.
There was a little square picture of her, half her face, one
lens of the heavy glasses that she liked to wear. The piece
about me was under a heading that said 'Tell us about
someone that you used to know.' It seemed to be a
question or a challenge set by someone, maybe another
blogger, or whoever ran the particular website, network,
whatever it was called. Underneath the old photograph of
me, Jem had written, 'My sister Lizzie Stephens, when she
was seventeen. She was seven years older than me, and
was the best sister ever. She was fun and outrageous and
she let me try on her clothes and her make-up. We used to
dance to songs on the radio and pretend we were pop
stars. She was my best friend.'

Then there was the photograph of me now, that snapshot
taken last Christmas. I looked like I normally did:
neat, pleasant, ordinary. Jem had written, 'Just when I
needed her most, Lizzie went away. Beth replaced her.
Beth's a schoolteacher in North London. She's perfectly
nice and everything, but I really miss Lizzie.'

At the top of the piece there was a little symbol of a
lock, open; next to it, the words 'viewable by anyone'.
The whole world could read this touching piece and look
at the pictures. It would have been a heartbreaking little
story of sisterly love, if only it hadn't scared me so much.

Jem was walking towards me, across Russell Square. I
would have known her walk anywhere. She had
scoliosis as a kid. Well, I guess she still had it. I don't think
you stop having it. She was eight or nine when they
diagnosed it, and she had to wear a brace for months on
end. She was supposed to, anyway, but she didn't. She
ended up having to have surgery. There was some kind of
bone graft from her hip. There was a metal rod in her
spine now. She always said that it was fine, that it didn't
hurt a bit, but it had given her a strangely jaunty walk:
uneven, as if she was exaggeratedly swinging her hips.

When I rang Jem, asking her to meet me, she suggested
some place in Soho. I insisted that we meet here, on my
home ground; somewhere out in the open where I felt
comparatively at home, comparatively safe. Somewhere
where I wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. It was Jem
who looked like the odd one out. She was wearing those
same huge black sandals that looked like car tyres
strapped to her feet, cropped trousers and a tiny, torn vest
top decorated with some kind of cartoon. I noticed that
the tattoos that had long adorned her shoulders were now
snaking down towards her elbows. When she saw me she
smiled, and despite the three rings through her bottom lip
and the thick-framed glasses that dominated her face, her
smile made her look about twelve years old.

'What's with the hat?' she said as she sat down. 'Are
you in disguise or something?'

I didn't answer. I pulled the cap off. She was right. It
was too obvious. 'I found this on the internet,' I said, and
showed her the printed page that I'd brought with me. As
I did so, I mentally kicked myself. I hadn't even said hello
to my own sister. I'd just rudely launched straight in.

Jem didn't seem bothered. 'You found my blog!' She
sounded thrilled.

'It really upset me.' I was trying to keep my voice as
neutral as possible. This was still my sweet little kid sister,
who I didn't want to hurt.

'My blog?' She was peeling an orange that she had dug
out of her huge canvas courier bag, and the juice squirted
onto the piece of paper.

'This piece. The photos. All that stuff about me.'

'Why?' She frowned at me, not so thrilled now.

'Why what?'

Jem sucked her orange. 'Why did it upset you?'

'Because you can't just put stuff on the internet like
that. It's my life. It's private.'

'Is this why you wanted to meet up?' she asked. 'To
tick me off? T o come the heavy big sister and tell me what
I can and can't do?' Her voice had turned chilly.

'Sorry,' I said. 'I didn't mean to sound like that. I didn't
mean to jump straight into it like that.'

'Sure you did. It's what you always do. You specialise
in being abrupt. Well, when you're not walking out on
people or pretending to have migraines, that is.'

'Jem . . .' That really hurt. She'd been so sweet to me
when I was ill at my parents' party. This wasn't going how
I'd planned.

'Look,' she said. 'I'm sorry this upset you . . .' and she
pointed at the printout from her blog. 'But you need to
know that it really upset me too.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean what I said there, in that post. I needed you. I
had that operation, and I had to wear that horrid brace,
and Mum and Dad were on my back the whole time about
it, nagging me. And all I wanted was to hang out with you.
With Lizzie. And do all the stuff we used to do. I wanted
things to be normal, and they weren't, because you were,
like, this whole other person. You suddenly became an
alien pod-person.'

Behind her glasses I could just see the start of tears in
her eyes. I was stunned. It had never occurred to me that
my eleven-year-old kid sister would have noticed the
change that strongly. 'Sorry,' I said. 'I didn't realise.'

'I thought it was because of me.'

Despite the tattoos and piercing I could still make out
the vulnerable little girl.

'It wasn't. It's . . . complicated.'

Jem stuck her beringed bottom lip out at me. 'That's
you all over,' she said. 'Things are always "complicated"
with you. Like there's this big mystery that you've
invented. "It's complicated." It's probably the thing you
say most. Well, after "Sorry, have to go, I have a
migraine." Or, "Marking." Lizzie, everyone's life is complicated,
not just yours. Haven't you realised that yet?'

I wanted to cry. But instead I squared my shoulders and
I steered the conversation back to the subject that
mattered most to me. 'When did you put this on there, this
piece about me?'

'I don't know.' She seemed relieved that I hadn't
reacted to her outburst. 'There should be a date on it
somewhere.' She pulled the sheet of paper towards her,
pointed at a tiny figure with her index finger. 'There you
are. Third of July, at 11.57 p.m. Does that help in some
way?'

It helped. At least, it helped me to know that this must
have been what had sparked the letters. The timing
fitted, perfectly. The first note had arrived just a week
later. 'The thing is, Jem, I really need you to take this
stuff off the internet. I don't want photos of me out there
for everyone to see.' As I said this, I realised that of
course it was already too late; that whoever had been
looking for me had found me. But still, I didn't want it
there any more.

Jem scowled. 'It's my blog.'

'And anyone can read this. It's personal stuff, about our
family. How would you feel if I put a picture on the
internet of you when you were five, saying "This is my
cute little sister Jemima Stephens," and then a picture of
you now? You wouldn't like it, would you?'

She thought about this for a while. She ate a couple
more segments of her orange. She swayed from side to
side in her seat, weighing something up. Then, abruptly,
'Tell me your secret.'

'What?'

'Tell me. Tell me why you changed. I've always
wondered. And don't just say, "It's complicated."'

I looked at her, and tried to make out the expression in
her eyes behind those glasses. I picked up the printout of
her blog and I folded it in half, lengthways, very precisely,
scoring the fold with my thumbnail. I folded it in quarters,
and then into eighths. I was warding off the temptation to
blurt. It would have been so easy. What an easy person to
tell. She would have been cool with it. Jem was pretty
much unshockable. She wouldn't have told anyone else in
the family about it; she wouldn't have reported me. But
she wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret. She'd
probably have been proud of it. She'd have posted it on
her blog. She'd have drawn a manga-style cartoon strip
about it. She'd have told a stranger in a bar about her cool,
evil sister. She'd have put the information out there, one
way or another. And there was another reason I couldn't
have told her. She was my kid sister, and she wasn't as
tough as she thought she was. I didn't want to sweep her
into my nightmare. And so I lied to her.

'When I went to San Francisco, I met this guy.' True,
so far. Jem was listening intently. 'We got involved.' Still
true. 'It all went wrong. It became abusive. He hurt me.'
Almost true, if you looked at it figuratively. 'I was scared
of him. And I'm still scared. He threatened me; he said
he'd come looking for me.' A total lie, but Jem believed
me, as far as I could tell.

'Shit, Beth. That was aeons ago.'

'I know. I can't help it. Please get rid of those photos.'

'Have you ever talked to someone? The police?' She
thought for a moment. 'Nah, they'd be no good. Never
are, when it comes to this kind of stuff. Maybe you should
get, like, counselling.' She ate another bit of orange.
'Have you told Sarah?'

'No. Why?'

She shrugged. 'Because Sarah's a grown-up. She'd
know what to do. Shit, Beth, this is huge. This is
unbelievable. I don't mean I don't believe you. I do,
course I do. I mean, I believe that you're scared. Jesus, it's
freaky. After all this time this guy's still scaring you?
What can I do to help?'

'Please, Jem. Take those pictures off your website.
And don't do anything like that again.'

'But you can't imagine that this guy's out there, just,
like, randomly Googling your name, planning to track
you down?'

'I think he might be.'

'Shit. That is fucking out of control.'

I thought I had finally got through to her. She put her
hand on top of mine and patted it. I clasped her hand in
mine, and we held them like that for a while, something
we hadn't done in years.

'Please take those pictures off, Jem. And please don't
tell anyone what I've told you.
Anyone.'

'No problem,' she said. 'I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
lock that blog entry, make it friends only, okay? That
means it won't turn up on a search engine.'

I guessed that was the best I could hope for.

'And call me – yeah? – if anything weird happens. Shit.