Split Second (9 page)

Emma wrote the labels:
Old Couple, Asian Man, Woman 1, Woman 2. Students, 1, 2, 3, 4. Mother and Baby
. She put
Large Man
instead of
Rugby Player
. She set them out neatly. Put herself opposite Luke.

He asked her at what point the verbal insults had turned physical.

‘Well, they pushed Luke back into his seat as soon as they got on,’ she described. ‘Then when he hit him, actually punched him in the head, that was when Jason had come downstairs; I think he saw it and that’s when he got involved.’ She felt a wash of shame. ‘I didn’t know it would end up like that,’ she said. ‘No one was saying anything.’ Her cheeks were boiling. ‘I didn’t know.’

He spread one hand, palm up. ‘How could you? These things are so unpredictable.’

I might have got killed, she reminded herself. If I had said anything, they might have come after me with the knife. I might have been dead now. She thought of her parents getting the news, standing by her grave. She had been telling herself that over and over. She was just a girl, a fat girl who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. How could she have said anything? But whenever she put herself back there, or heard the name Jason Barnes, saw the bits on the news, or the pictures in the papers, she didn’t feel relieved that she’d sat by and done nothing; she just felt ashamed.

Martine wanted to talk to them. She settled Val and Andrew in his parents’ living room.

‘One of the items we found on Jason was a bus ticket. We traced the bus that it was issued on and recovered CCTV footage.’ Martine spoke slowly, with a sing-song tone, as though they were children.

Val nodded, her mouth slightly ajar, tongue tucked into the side of her teeth, a familiar gesture of avid concentration, her eyes eager. She’d never had much patience, Andrew knew. She was quick and competent and swift to pass judgement. Her own strong work ethic, her fierce intelligence, her certainty meant she’d little time for people who floundered. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear; she was still lovely, he saw, even with the dark circles under her eyes and her hair tangled. She had a Nordic type of beauty, with her white-blonde hair, lightly tanned complexion, eyes a grey-blue like sea ice. He could sense her impatience singing in the air.

‘The investigating team have examined the tape, and it now appears that the incident began on the bus.’

‘What happened?’ Val demanded.

‘Three youths, matching the descriptions you have given us, can be seen behaving aggressively towards Luke Murray. This was on the lower deck. Jason, who was travelling upstairs, intervenes when he comes down to get off the bus.’

Val covered her mouth. Andrew swallowed.

‘At that point Jason was pushed away and Luke ran off the bus, followed by the three youths, and then Jason.’

‘Can you see who they are?’ Andrew asked, hope giving him a rush of energy. ‘You’ve got them on film.’

‘The images aren’t brilliant, but they will be a great help to us. We may be releasing stills along with the e-fits after the holiday.’

‘Why wait?’

‘People are away, the papers don’t come out Christmas Day and Boxing Day’s a Sunday. We want to maximize the impact, reach as many members of the public as we can. How are the arrangements coming?’

Andrew saw Val react to the clumsy change of topic, a little roll of her eyes and a blink before she replied. ‘Okay, thanks. Thursday the thirtieth at midday.’

Jason’s funeral.

They moved back home.

‘Stay till after Christmas,’ Andrew’s mother had begged. ‘You don’t want to be on your own.’

But Val was adamant. They went on Christmas Eve. Beforehand, Colin had spoken to Andrew, offering to make a visit, check the place out.

‘The chair.’ Andrew saw Jason tipping forward, the shocking stain glistening on the back of the armchair.

Colin blanched. ‘We’ll get rid of it. Check the fridge and that. Mum’s putting together some groceries.’

‘I can shop,’ Andrew said.

Colin smiled and shook his head. Big brother. Andrew felt a rush of affection and gratitude. He used to joke with Val about how dull and predictable Colin was, never putting a foot wrong, never veering from his chosen path, but now he relished that dogged, undramatic reliability.

He and Val arrived at lunchtime. Andrew felt selfconscious, exposed and raw, like the fleeting sensation on emerging from a darkened cinema into the bold glare of daylight.

‘Oh, look,’ said Val. Their fence was a riot of colour, a shrine to Jason. Andrew parked in the drive. There was nothing to see on the lawn; the snow had long since melted, and with it the stain of Luke’s blood.

‘Come and see,’ she said, walking round to the pavement. There were flowers in cellophane wrapping, some already withered, blackened by frost, and cards and trinkets, ribbons and photographs, pools of wax on the ground where candles had melted, a red glass lantern still glowing crimson from the guttering flame inside. The wind was cold, ruffling and crackling the shiny wrappers of the flowers and the scraps of paper. Someone had used a hammer-tacker to staple some of the cards up, though fragments of Sellotape were visible too. Andrew guessed it had been Colin. Thoughtful, organized.

They read all the cards, though many were illegible, the writing blurred by the rain that had fallen. Some of the names were familiar: friends from school, friends who’d known Jason since National Childbirth Trust coffee mornings, since nursery. There were even a few from people Val worked with at the town hall. Somebody had taped a packet of chewing gum to the fence. Val made a little sound as she pointed it out, halfway between a snort and a sob. She had hated Jason chewing gum, both because of the mess when he left it stuck to the side of his bin or she found it trodden into the carpet, and also because of the sight of him chewing. ‘It makes you look sloppy and insolent,’ she’d said on one occasion. Jason had cracked his gum by way of reply and Andrew had laughed and earned a reproachful look from Val.

‘Oh, Andrew.’ Val turned to him and buried her face in his neck. He closed his eyes and held her, emptied his mind and drank in the simple physical comfort.

Inside, the house was warm. The wood-burning stove was lit and there was a trace of wood smoke on the air and the scent of oranges and cloves from the pomanders Val had brought back from the Christmas markets in Albert Square.

Without talking, they went into the living room. The chair had gone. The floor was clean. There was nothing to see.

‘Do you want a tea?’ Her voice was husky.

‘Yes please.’

Piles of mail on the kitchen table: cards, letters, bills. They sat together opening and sorting them: Christmas greetings and condolence cards. Val making a note of people who had yet to be told, friends who lived abroad and weren’t in any of the loose networks who passed on the news.

‘They might want to know about the funeral,’ she said about one family who came back to the UK most holidays, getting her phone out.

‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ he said.

She glanced at him, then accepted that it wasn’t a good time to ring anyone.

‘There’ll be time after,’ he said.

Now he couldn’t settle. He and Val had emptied their holdalls of the assortment of clothes and toiletries that had accumulated at his parents’ house, then picked at the casserole that was in the fridge. Val was adding to her lists. He fed another log into the stove.

‘His room,’ she said, and Andrew’s head swam. ‘Can we just leave it?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He imagined it would be messy: the bag Jason had brought home only half unpacked, crusted cereal bowls and dirty coffee cups strewn around the place. ‘He might have pots need bringing down.’

She smiled and nodded, faltered, her eyes brimming. ‘I can’t bear it.’ She ran her hands through her hair, pulling at it, her face crumpled.

‘I know.’ He went to hug her.

‘We’ll have a look,’ she said.

His heart beat hard in his chest as they went upstairs. Jason’s door was ajar. Val moved ahead of him to push it open. That’s how she copes with it, he thought; she says she can’t bear it, but then she meets it head on.

The door swung open. There was the bag, jeans and dirty socks on the floor. The smell of him there, the smell of Jason. Posters on the walls: the Gorillaz
Plastic Beach
album, a Guinness ad, photos of Jason and his mates mucking about in Cornwall, a Peters projection world map.

There were no cups or bowls or plates, no apple cores. No chewing gum wrappers.

‘His bin’s empty.’ Val frowned.

‘Colin – he’ll have cleared up.’

Val sat down on Jason’s bed.

‘I’m going to lie down for a bit.’ She bent to pull her shoes off.

‘Shall I wake you?’

‘No.’ She swung her legs up on to the bed, pulled at the duvet.

‘Okay.’ He shut the door.

Desperate for distraction, Andrew plugged in his laptop. The first time he’d checked his emails in days. The inbox filled: 4 . . . 11 . . . 28 . . . 36 . . . 41 new messages. His junk box gobbled up most of them. Three were from colleagues or acquaintances expressing sympathy. He skimmed them quickly, not wanting to engage.

There were two messages from the hospital speech therapy unit, referrals for the New Year. He replied acknowledging them, feeling unreal. Impossible to imagine being back there, though what else could he do?

He thought about the Facebook site for Jason. He’d still not looked at it, though Val did. She kept mentioning it and had even added her own thoughts and some pictures. She’d tried to read them to him, but he had left the room, unable to stand with her on this. She had sought him out later, wanting to talk about it, began with, ‘It helps me, Andrew, to see how many people care, to read about him.’

He didn’t answer.

‘It’s as if you don’t want to remember—’

‘It’s not that.’ He cut her off. ‘I can’t do it this way.’ Wallow, he wanted to say, but it felt so cruel he bit it back. ‘Not yet. I’m sorry.’

‘I need to be able to talk about him, like we do with your mum and dad – all of us, even the kids.’

Two evenings where in some sort of wake they had sat up late sharing stories. His parents, Val and him, Colin and Izzie and their kids. He had wanted to stop their mouths and cast them out, silence the peals of laughter and murmurs of soft fond recognition. Watching their eyes shine with affection and sparkle with tears, hands moving with gestures to illustrate their tales, he had seethed with rage. Did she not notice that he had said little, contributed nothing, drinking steadily, way more than anyone else, and been the first to leave, escaping with ‘a bad head’ or ‘need to lie down’?

He closed the laptop, took a tea bag out of the jar, found a cup, stared at it, then put it down. He fetched his coat and hat and gloves and set off in the darkening light.

‘Hello.’

It was Andrew Barnes again.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said.

Louise stared at the man. What did he want with them? She hadn’t mentioned his earlier visit to either Ruby or Carl. Didn’t know how to put it. It seemed private somehow, and puzzling.

‘How is he?’ He looked anxious, apprehensive, as though he feared she might send him away.

‘The same,’ she said.

Andrew gestured to his own face, then at Luke. ‘He’s not got the mask.’

‘He’s breathing on his own but nothing else.’

‘But he still might . . .’

She nodded quickly. ‘Yes, it’s totally unpredictable. They say that the longer time goes on, the less chance there is that people’ll wake up, but it’s still quite early on, really.’ Seven days. Only three since they stopped sedation, she told herself. No time at all.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

It felt stupid, him standing across the other side of the room. She pointed to Ruby’s chair. ‘If you want to . . .’

‘Thanks.’

He didn’t look any better than last time, she thought, and knew she looked worse. She’d caught sight of her reflection in the visitors’ toilets, shocked to see grey in her hair. She had always thought that was a myth. And marks like bruises under her eyes. ‘They asked for pictures,’ she said. ‘The police: before and after.’ The memory was bitter in her mouth. ‘They used them in the appeal.’

He nodded.

She had known immediately which picture of Luke she would give them. Ruby had taken it when they were in Ibiza the summer before last. Luke at the restaurant table, relaxed, smiling. Rush matting and grapevines in the background, a knickerbocker glory with sparklers in front of him – his birthday. They’d teamed up with her mates Fee and Deanne and their kids to go. Deanne had got them a good deal because the apartment was her mum’s timeshare. The cheap flights meant travelling at god-awful hours both ways, but it had been a brilliant week for them all. Louise had worried about Luke; it was not long after he’d been in trouble over the graffiti, and before that the fireworks, and he’d been bunking off school. He was the eldest of the kids in the group but he was really good with the others, and then halfway through the week he’d met a girl from London, a holiday romance. Louise hoped they were taking precautions and said so to Luke, who grimaced. ‘Leave it out, won’t you,’ sounding a bit cockney himself. Louise hadn’t warmed to the girl, who had a habit of smirking at her whenever they met. She was glad when there was no mention of her after they got home.

‘They sent someone in here to take a photo.’ She gestured at Luke. She had sat there feeling furious, though not sure why, as the man had adjusted lights and moved drip stands and used a camera with a huge lens on the front then checked to see what he’d got on his screen.

‘The fight,’ Louise said, a cramp in her guts. ‘What happened?’ Putting together what the police had told her and what had been reported in the news, it was still so patchy. She knew there were three people involved, thought to be in their late teens, two boys and a girl. All white.

‘They think it started on the bus,’ Andrew said. ‘There’s a stop near the house. Jason was coming back from town.’

Had Luke been on the bus? A lurch in her stomach as the possibility struck. Declan said he had gone into town for some Christmas meal with his day-release course. If he had got the number 50 back instead of one of the buses down Wilmslow Road, which he sometimes did, then he could have been on the same bus as Jason. Then what? He’d made some smart comment, stared at them the wrong way? Or they’d homed in on him – a mixed-race kid, someone to taunt, to bully.